


skinny bitch

by honeybubbletae, kingtatae



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Coming of Age, Depressive themes, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Exploration, Fluff and Angst, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Vomitting, Non-Explicit Masturbation, Slow Burn, Warnings May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-05-15 12:35:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 24,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14790623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeybubbletae/pseuds/honeybubbletae, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingtatae/pseuds/kingtatae
Summary: Lee Donghyuck is fat.Russian Translation:Here





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> this is gonna be my first and only warning: there's a lot of talk about food, and eating, and struggling with self-image, and self-hatred. implied eating disorders. there could potentially be more triggering content so if i missed something in the tags, just tell me and i'll add it asap. 
> 
> (also, a lot of this in no way reflects what i feel about hyuck)
> 
> thank you to @lindayonni (twt) for her Russian translation!!

It starts like this:

“Donghyuck-ah,” one of the stylist-noona’s is holding a jacket in her arms, and when she reaches him she holds it out for him to take. “Try putting this on.”

Donghyuck frowns. “Why?” The other boys are in short sleeves, shorter shorts. It’s the middle of summer, and wearing a jacket seems ridiculous. The stylist noona runs her eyes over him. She smiles, then reaches forward playfully to poke at his side.

“You’re getting a little chubby lately,” she says, lightly pinching his waist. Her smile is nothing but kind. “The jacket should cover it up perfectly.”

Biting his lip, Donghyuck takes the jacket from her with a mumbled ‘okay’. He tries not to take her words to heart, but he can’t help but glance at the other boys, who are in sleeveless jerseys and short-sleeved tees, shorts cropped high. He glances self-consciously down at himself, at his own thighs, at the tiny pouch of baby fat around his middle.

He’s never thought much of himself like that—he’s a teenage boy with a healthy appetite and a grueling schedule of dance and dance and then even more dance. Food’s never been an issue—he exercises more than enough. But he isn’t all skin and bones like some of the other boys, not like Jisung or Renjun. He isn’t as sturdy, either, not like Jeno is—Donghyuck is softer, warm around the edges. He’s never noticed before now.

He pulls the jacket tighter around himself.

“What’re you wearing, Hyuck?” He hears, and then an arm—thin, so thin—is swinging around his shoulders. He turns his head to find himself eye-to-eye with Mark.

“I was a little chilly,” Donghyuck says, and Mark raises his eyebrows in disbelief.

“Hyuck, it’s scorching out here.”

Donghyuck only laughs and leans forward to knock his forehead against Mark’s cheek—the other boy recoils—and pouts, “I’m sensitive to the cold.”

There’s a moment where Mark’s expression is unreadable. They both know that Donghyuck’s excuse is bullshit. It _is_ sweltering outside—nobody in their right minds would want to wear a jacket. For one awful, tense moment Donghyuck is afraid that Mark will scoff and call him out on the white lie. Instead, the boy rolls his eyes and grins.

“Whatever you say, Hyuck,” he says and then withdraws his arm from Donghyuck’s shoulder, off to find Jaemin, who’s making fun of Chenle and Jisung somewhere in the distance. Donghyuck’s fingers clench in the too-long sleeves of the jacket, and crosses his arms over his middle.

And then Jeno’s calling him, asking him _what do you think of my new hair_ , and Donghyuck says _it’s kind of cute but you didn’t hear that from me_ , and then they laugh and Donghyuck forgets what he was even worried about in the first place.

It becomes the first of many difficult days, days where Donghyuck finds it harder and harder to love himself for _him_.

~

Summer comes, and summer goes, and Donghyuck is thankful for the respite autumn brings. There are no more shorts to wear, no more silly ankle socks or sweat from jackets meant to cover him up.

And yet, Donghyuck finds himself becoming even more uncomfortable in his skin, despite the fact that less of it is on display.

At dinner, Yuta says to Jaehyun playfully, “You’re getting fat, Jaehyun—so _I’ll_ eat your portion instead.” Jaehyun laughs, flipping Yuta off, and Donghyuck quietly puts down his chopsticks. From his side, Mark eyes him curiously.

“Are you full?” He asks Donghyuck, voice full of doubt.

Donghyuck answers truthfully: “I’m feeling a little nauseous.” And it really is the truth. Getting fat, diets, food, they’re all topics that Donghyuck is coming to think about more and more often. It isn’t a good feeling. Mark reaches over to rub his back, and the feeling of wanting to hurl subsides—just a little.

But Donghyuck is no less exhausted, and he soon excuses himself and goes to the bathroom.

He stares at himself in the mirror. At the corner of his lips, there’s a speck of rice. He wipes it off, furiously, feels the ghost of its presence there still. All he can see in his mirror is his rounded jaw, his full cheeks. He forces himself to smile. It looks as fake as it feels, and he doesn’t bother holding it any longer. He lets it fall, and instead pulls his shirt up, over his head and off. There are no abs—a one pack, he’d jokingly dubbed a while ago. Now it feels like anything but a joke. He presses his hand to his stomach. It’s soft, and he keeps pushing until it hurts.

The word echoes, silent in the cold of the bathroom, where the ice of the tiles is beginning to seep into Donghyuck through the soles of his bare feet. _Fat_. _Fat. You’re fat_.

“I’m not fat,” Donghyuck tells his reflection. His reflection doesn’t reply, staring back—cold eyes, pursed lips. But he imagines it saying: _you’re a liar. You know the truth. You’re fat. Fat, fat, fat, fat_ —Donghyuck has to look away. Shakily, he stumbles to the shower. Turns the water on, turns it to the highest temperature.

He’d read somewhere that if you alternate temperatures from the two extreme ends in the shower—scorching and then freezing—you’ll burn fat. He tells himself that this is what he needs. He strips down to nothing, and can’t even look at himself in the mirror. He steps into the rush of water, has to bite his lip from crying out. It burns it burns it _burns_. He twists the knob as far as it’ll go, and gasps into the cradle of his elbow at the sudden blast of icy cold water, stinging needles against his sensitive skin.

He does this for the next ten minutes, silently, in some sort of masochistic agony, biting his bottom lip so hard that tears well up in his eyes. He isn’t crying. If he is, all evidence washes down the drain.

Ten minutes later, he stumbles out of the shower stall, knock-kneed and exhausted, feeling all the worse for wear.

“Oi,” there’s someone slamming on the door. Johnny. “If you don’t get out of there in the next two minutes, I’m forcing my way in—I need to take a shit!”

Panic grips Donghyuck, and the hand he has clenched in the towel around his waist begins to shake. “I’ll be out in a second, calm your tits,” he manages, snarky and sarcastic as always, and then turns away from the judgmental stare of his reflection. He pulls an oversized shirt over his head—it’s Jaehyun’s—and then underwear and big grey sweatpants. Once suitably ensconced in his armor for the night, he drags the door open.

Johnny squints at him. “Dude, are you alright? You’re like, bright red.”

Before he can stop himself, Donghyuck’s hand goes flying to touch his cheek, which still smarts from the blistering water from earlier. “Took a hot shower,” he says simply.

“That explains it,” Johnny nods, sagely, and then: “Move, brat, or else I’m gonna shit on the floor right now.”

This startles a laugh out of Donghyuck. “Gross,” he quips, and Johnny just grins and pushes past him into the bathroom.

Donghyuck stands for a moment in the hallway, alone. He inhales, shakily. Steels himself.

“I’m okay,” he whispers. From behind the bathroom door, within the mirror, his reflection laughs. _No,_ it says. _That’s a lie_.

(It is.)


	2. two

They’re playing a game— _yaja_ -time—and Jisung turns to Donghyuck. “Why are you so ugly,” he says, “Lose some weight,” and even though Donghyuck’s expression is one of amused disbelief, nausea rises so fast in his stomach he’s surprised he doesn’t throw up right then and there. The game goes on, the day continues, and Donghyuck laughs harder and brighter than he ever has before.

 _They can’t know_ , he chants, _they can’t they can’t they can’t_. And so, they don’t.

Donghyuck is a ball of sunshine, warm laughs and brighter smiles. He jokes around with the younger members more, teases Mark more, laughs harder at his jokes, becomes an integral part of NCT and all its units. He wants to feel needed. _Needs_ to feel wanted.

He smiles until his cheeks hurt, and then at night, when everyone is asleep, he creeps to the bathroom and takes his shirt off and turns every which way, squeezing at his sides, pinching his waist until marks of purple and blue bloom along his skin. He wishes it were easier. Wishes he could go to sleep and then wake up knowing how to love himself.

Some days, it’s better. Some days he’s so happy just spending time with the other members, so distracted and active during the day he doesn’t have the energy to waste at night on anything aside from sleep. Some days, it’s worse. When there’s nothing to do but to go online and read netizen comments, lovely and horrible, and then stare at himself in the mirror and count down all the things that are wrong with him.

 _Fat_. The word comes first. _Ugly. Useless. Unlovable_ , _disgusting, horrible, boring, ugly, fat, useless—_ and over and over and over again until they’re all that he hears and he’s crying silently into his own clenched fists, so terribly alone as the rush of the shower drowns out all his tears and washes his voice away into cold tiles and then into nothingness.

“Hyuck-ah?” Donghyuck is sitting on his bed, knees drawn up to his chest, listening to Red Velvet songs and thinking about his family. When was the last time he’d gone home? Chuseok holiday? He’s tired. So, so tired. He wants to meet with his friends from school, wants to spend a day out in the sun, splashing in a creek, listening to nothing more than the sound of his mother’s nagging and the bright chirp of birds and spring.

“Yeah,” he says.

Without waiting for approval, Mark walks in, looking slightly disheveled in a pair of low-riding sweatpants and a big green t-shirt. “Do you know where my grey hoodie went?” He asks.

“No,” says Donghyuck. “What, do I look like your mom?”

“No need to be a smartass,” Mark rolls his eyes. “What’re you doing now, then?” He squints at Donghyuck.

Donghyuck has a blanket on his lap, but underneath he’s wearing shorts. It’s at that moment that Donghyuck is endlessly thankful for the blanket, so that he wouldn’t have to subject Mark to the pitiful look of his legs, the thickness of his thighs, nor the bruises that litter the skin from where he pinched too hard.

“Watching Red Velvet-sunbaenims’ music videos,” he tells the older boy. “You wanna join?”

“Sure,” says Mark, after a beat. “Scoot over.”

Donghyuck does. Mark pulls the blanket over his own legs, so that they’re huddled together underneath. Donghyuck doesn’t sit too close, doesn’t want Mark to feel the excessive softness of his arms and side. He bites his lip, holds himself back. He loves skinship, except tonight he feels ugly and gross and entirely nauseous at the thought of Mark leaning too close and feeling his softness—his pudge.

“Wow,” Mark says. “Look at that shot. Joy-noona is so pretty.”

Donghyuck smiles, weakly. “She is.”

“They’re all so pretty, Hyuck-ah,” Mark appraises, and he sounds so proud of them. “Their music videos are only getting better and better.”

Donghyuck hums. _They’re pretty because they’re thin_ , the voice inside of him says, and it laughs and laughs and laughs. _Nothing like you_.

Underneath the blanket, Mark grabs Donghyuck’s hand, and twines their fingers together. Donghyuck turns to look at him, wide-eyed and startled, heart beating a little too fast all of a sudden, but Mark is staring straight ahead, resolute. Donghyuck bites his lip and looks down. Mark’s hand is solid in his. _Warm_ , he thinks. _So warm._

~

Donghyuck pushes his bowl away, much to Taeyong’s disappointment.

“Hyuck-ah,” he says. “Does it not taste good?”

Donghyuck smiles, so bright that it startles himself. “No, it’s delicious, hyung! I snacked earlier so I’m full…” it’s a blatant lie. He’s still starving—the two bites he’d taken only makes him hungrier, but for the sake of dieting he has to hold back.

Another stylist noona had mentioned sizing him up one in pants, and Donghyuck’ll be damned if that’s going to happen. He ignores the thought that maybe it’s just him getting taller. It doesn’t matter anyways. There’s no harm in becoming thinner than he is now, anyway.

Taeyong looks at him uncertainly, and Donghyuck smiles reassuringly. He loves Taeyong, but sometimes, now, all he sees are his hyung’s thin waist, his thinner ankles, his tiny wrists. It hurts. It hurts.

The comments pile in on the videos of 127’s performances. _Cutie Mark, golden maknae_ , they say. There’s no mention of Donghyuck.

 _Wow, Haechan,_ one comment says. _I didn’t notice how chubby he was until now. His cheeks are so cute!_

Chubby. Fat. They’re all the same.

Donghyuck’s fingers curl. He’s hungry. He can’t eat. He won’t. He has to be thinner—thin enough so that he’ll finally be handsome, thin enough so that fans will love him more. He wants to be the type of idol where fans will mother him, tell him: “Eat more, Hyuck-ah, you’re looking so thin,” instead of the idol where fans say, “Don’t stop eating, we love your fluffy cheeks.” He wants to be treated like something precious—something breakable.

Maybe it’s strange. It’s just what he wants.

Unbeknownst to Donghyuck, there’s someone watching, with worried eyes and a furrowed brow. (There always is.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. timelines are fucked i have no idea what i'm writing  
> 2\. comments are nice?? oof talk to me i'm!!!


	3. three

The first time Donghyuck makes himself throw up, it’s after the filming for GO’s music video. After the last of the set had been wrapped up, the hyungs take them out to eat.

“For celebration,” Ten explains, with a brilliant smile. “You guys did so well.”

They take them out to a cheap restaurant, because where else are they going to get mountains of affordable food for a hoard of hungry boys with bottomless stomachs? They spill into a restaurant, a boisterous jumble of limbs and excited voices who are trying to be quiet (and failing).

Almost everything on the menu is ordered, and for once, Donghyuck isn’t thinking about being fat, because he’s still riding the high of the success of the completed music video, and before he knows it he’s eaten everything on his plate and then some more, and it doesn’t hit him until Taeyong grins and says, “Wow, Hyuck-ah! You ate well—I’m glad.”

And everything comes crashing down and the guilt hits him and he feels awful and bloated and disgusting. His mouth feels greasy and slick and bile rises in his throat and he tamps down on the nausea and grins back at Taeyong and says “Of course, everything was so good how could I not,” and teasingly Jisung adds “pig,” because he’s Jisung, and Donghyuck all of a sudden wants to cry.

“Not a pig,” Mark is saying suddenly. “If anything, _you’re_ the pig, Jisung-ah—you ate loads more than Hyuck,” and Jisung sticks his tongue out, eyes crinkled with laughter.

But Donghyuck isn’t paying attention anymore, he’s looking down at his phone—playing a game—and trying his best not to cry.

They go home and Donghyuck says, “I’m sleepy,” and goes to his and Jaehyun’s room.

“Goodnight,” Jaehyun says, as Donghyuck shucks off his socks, and reaches over to ruffle his hair.

“Goodnight,” Donghyuck replies, getting underneath the covers and staring unblinkingly at the ceiling.

The clock ticks on, the hours go by. Time does not stop for anyone, let alone a boy who just wants a break, a _breather_ from it all. One by one, the bedroom doors click shut. Lights turn off. The members fall asleep. Still, Donghyuck lies motionless in bed, and feels so, so guilty.

At three a.m. when he’s sure Jaehyun is fast asleep, carefully, he gets out of bed.

He tiptoes to the door and then out, down the hall into the bathroom furthest from all the bedrooms. He goes in, turns on the tap. Listens to the steady rush of running water. In the dim half-light under the glow of the blue nightlight on the top right corner of the mirror, Donghyuck watches his reflection. Chubby cheeks, fat face, fat all over. Ugly ugly ugly.

He squeezes his eyes shut.

There’s so much guilt. He shouldn’t have eaten so much—shouldn’t have eaten at all.

He kneels before the toilet, head bowed. He doesn’t feel like throwing up. But he’s so _guilty_. He leans closer, thinks of all that he’d eaten, and there’s that telltale nausea, yet still he can’t expel anything at all. He helps himself along, presses two fingers to the column of his neck, against his throat, applying a dull pressure. He gags. Nothing, still.

Loses patience, sticks two fingers in his mouth then down his throat and _oh_ —there it is.

Miserably, ten minutes later, Donghyuck flushes the toilet, brushes his teeth, and cries helplessly into his hands.

~

Lee Donghyuck comes to a steady realization that he hates food. Somewhere along the way, though, he’s become _obsessed_ with it. He gets into cooking, likes making delicious meals and feeding his members, likes watching the way Chenle’s eyes crinkle and his cheeks puff up, likes the way Mark smiles in thanks and pats his back, likes the praises that rain down every time he makes something that’s particularly good.

“Aren’t you hungry?” He hears, and he only shakes his head and smiles.

“Not really—I was eating as I was cooking.” It’s a lie, but the members are appeased.

“Cutie Donghyuck,” says Taeyong and reaches over to pinch his cheeks. “You’re growing up so well.”

Donghyuck smiles.

~

Comeback season rolls around again, with the release of ‘GO’ (in NCT it’s always comeback season, somewhere or somehow, Donghyuck doesn’t know how Mark does it _all the damn time_ ), and they’re thrust into the spotlight yet again. Donghyuck likes the vibe of the comeback, likes being the limelight. Likes the way fans cheer, loves when the rest of the members _ooh_ and _ahh_ over his stage presence, over his killer gaze. Hates the way his makeup looks, hates the way he looks. Praised and validated one moment, shot down the next.

Comebacks are a rollercoaster of sensation, and Donghyuck is flying the highs and crashing the lows.

He finds skipping meals much easier, now that they’re in the throe of things. There’s no one hovering to make sure he’s eating enough, no one there to check if he’s resting enough because that’s just it—no one’s resting enough. He’ll be lucky if he can catch a few moments rest in the car rides to-and-from schedules, and maybe crash in his bunk utterly destroyed.

Besides, he isn’t the only one forgoing food or rest. Other members regularly forget to eat, ignore the call of their beds in exchange for more practice, more productive things.

 _I’m doing fine_ , is what Donghyuck says to himself, before every new schedule, every extra hour spent in the studios. He’s not doing fine.

He’s spending just as much time fooling around with the other members, bright and loud and extra extra happy, and he swells with pride whenever he overhears someone saying that his legs look long and nice and thin.

“Hyung,” he whines, extra cute, dragging out the vowels, and clings to Mark’s arm. He beams up at Mark, who sits stock-still and tense, before leaning in to nuzzle his neck. “I’m thirsty, can I have some of your water?”

There’s a half-beat, and Mark’s expression is unreadable. Donghyuck’s grip tightens around his bicep. “Hy- _ung_ ,” he wheedles. “I want some water.”

“Whatever,” says Mark, gruffly, and thrusts the half empty water bottle at him. “Just take it.”

Donghyuck smiles so wide it hurts. “Thanks, Mark-hyung! You’re the best.” Before Mark has the time to react (read: recoil), he leans in and pecks the older boy’s cheek. He grabs the water bottle and runs, laughing all the while at Mark’s startled yelp and flustered stuttering.

Once he’s safely out of range, Donghyuck allows himself to slow down, gives himself a moment to breathe. He can’t stop smiling. He closes his eyes, thinks about Mark’s bright eyes, pink cheeks, bitten lower lip. Flushes warm, and then realizes: oh— _oh_.

_And my, isn’t Donghyuck silly._


	4. four

As an idol, he’s expected to keep up a façade. His life is meant to be picture-perfect, caught in technicolor and marked only with happiness. But Donghyuck is human, helplessly so. He’s just a boy, who’d left home too early, who’s made his fair share of mistakes except the difference is this: he’s done it with thousands upon thousands of judging eyes on him.

He has his virtues, he has his vices. Sometimes he’s speaking with the older hyungs and then they go off on a tangent and he realizes he doesn’t understand _anything_ and that’s when it becomes starkly clear in his eyes that he’s nothing more than a pathetic high school dropout. He tries to study by himself, but it’s so boring. He hates feeling like he’s got the short end of the stick, like he’s missing out on things that he could’ve had had he lived a _normal_ life.

It’s not that he regrets joining NCT, or choosing to become an idol, because he doesn’t—not at all. He wouldn’t give it up for the world. But there are little things (not so little) that build and build _and build_ until he keels over from the pressure. Quietly, alone, hunched over the toilet, gasping for air and sobbing. The comments, for one. Donghyuck’s always been in tune with what the netizens say, and he knows first when they’re talking shit.

He isn’t a fool. He knows that sometimes when he asks Mark to translate an English comment, its contents will be ugly and venomous. Donghyuck can tell, from the way Mark pauses and bites his lip and looks at Donghyuck with furrowed brows, with those wide, worried, utterly guileless eyes of his. Donghyuck will smile, bright and fake, and urge Mark on. _Come on, hyung_ , he’ll say, _tell me what it says—I don’t have all day_.

“It says that… the commenter thinks that Lee Donghyuck is the cutest member with the brightest smile and the best voice, and that she loves him the most,” Mark will lie through his teeth. “But you don’t need that to inflate your already massive ego even more.”

Donghyuck’ll whine, push at Mark’s shoulder playfully. But he isn’t stupid. He knows. Knows very well that the comment probably reads more along the line of ‘what the hell is that fat loser doing in NCT anyways he contributes nothing to the team’. Donghyuck knows this all too well. But Mark—sweet, lovely, beautiful Mark, will look him in the eye and lie to him, just so that Donghyuck’s stupid, insignificant feelings won’t be hurt.

Sometimes, Donghyuck hates Mark. Hates that he’s the golden boy, the golden _maknae_ who isn’t actually the maknae but still thought of as one because no one really remembers that one member called ‘Haechan’. Mark is the one who’s loved by all, a perfect all-rounder, favored by SM, adored by fans. And Donghyuck _despises_ him, sometimes. But then he’ll catch himself thinking awful thoughts like that and Donghyuck will think: _God, you’re the worst,_ and he hates himself all the more for it. Because Mark doesn’t deserve this petty jealousy—doesn’t deserve Donghyuck’s ugly thoughts—doesn’t even deserve Donghyuck’s warmest, sweetest thoughts, because he deserves the _best_ and the best is something Donghyuck doesn’t even have to offer.

With all that’s been said and done, Donghyuck is undeniably his own worst critic, if there’s nothing else that can be known about this bright boy with the saddest eyes.

Donghyuck spends the days filling others’ days with laughter and light, and then spends the nights alone, wallowing in self-pity. Marks up the tender, fleshy bits of his body with bruises and scratches, because _why doesn’t anything look right, why can’t I do anything right_ , and then cries silently in the shower. It’s an endless cycle, one that’s so pathetic that sometimes he can’t help but laugh at himself, because what else can he do but find humor in his failures?

He comes to realize that he is somewhat of a talented actor—a fantastic liar. But he isn’t good enough to fool himself.

~

Donghyuck may be a self-proclaimed fantastic actor—but he isn’t quite good enough to fool Mark.

“Hey, Hyuck,” says Mark, one morning on a precious day off, when he walks into Donghyuck’s room without knocking again. 127’s dorm is completely empty—the rest of the members have gone out to do other things, and Donghyuck is taking the opportunity for a well-earned extra few hours of sleep. He’s still cocooned in a pile of blankets, but he’s mostly awake and watching anime on his laptop.

“Hey, Mark,” says Donghyuck, voice muffled through the pillow he has his face half-buried in. Mark’s nose wrinkles at the omission of ‘hyung’, but he doesn’t say anything (he usually doesn’t).

Mark’s looking a little bit flushed, hair rumpled from the wind outside, temples beading with sweat from when he’d gone out in the morning. “Anyways, it’s almost eleven—have you had breakfast yet?”

Donghyuck squints up at him. He hasn’t eaten breakfast in over a week—although most members had skipped as well, because of schedules. He briefly considers if he should lie and tell Mark that he’s already eaten. Something in Mark’s expression gives Donghyuck pause. Maybe it’s the wide, guileless look of his eyes, or the complete and utter earnest openness.  

Something in Donghyuck cracks. “Not yet,” he admits, and Mark’s mouth splits into a beautiful, heart-stopping grin. Donghyuck has to stop himself from visibly grinding his teeth together.

“Great!” Says Mark. “Because I brought home some pastries and other things from Paris Baguette—usually we can’t eat this stuff, but it’s our day off, and I just happened to pass by, and it looked and smelled really good, so—”

“Mark.” Donghyuck interrupts him, and has to bite back a fond smile. “You’re rambling.”

“Oh,” Mark blinks and then giggles, flustered, like he’s genuinely embarrassed. “Sorry.” He hurries forwards and throws himself onto Donghyuck’s bed, a few feet away from where Donghyuck is huddled. He hands Donghyuck two massive, bulging paper bags, and grins. “Look, though, I got a little bit of almost everything.”

The sight of all the snacks and bread items and pastries is enough to make Donghyuck feel both famished and queasy. “I love a bougie king,” he jokes instead, and doesn’t make a move to take anything from the bags.

Mark rolls his eyes. “Shut up, dork,” says Mark, and Donghyuck gasps.

“Did you just call _me_ a dork? Big words from _you_! You didn’t even recognize our own song! You don’t know how to operate an iPhone! You don’t know how to shop online—”

“Alright, alright,” Mark hurries to appease Donghyuck, and there’s pink creeping up his neck. “My bad, my bad—you’re the best.”

Huffily, Donghyuck settles back into place. “That’s _right_.”

He turns back to his computer. Even without looking at Mark, he can feel the boy deflate.

“Aren’t you…” Mark trails off, and his voice is ever-so-slightly wobbly. “Aren’t you going to eat anything?”

Donghyuck doesn’t want to. “Duh,” he says, instead. “I obviously will. Do you have anything with strawberries?”

“Of course!” Mark sounds all chipper again, and he rummages around in the bag he has on his lap for a moment before handing Donghyuck a pastry, this massive thing stuffed entirely with cream and topped off with strawberries. Donghyuck wants to hurl just looking at it. He takes it with a smile.

“Yummy,” he tells Mark. “My favorite! You’re the best, Markie-poo.”

Laughing, Mark shoves Donghyuck’s shoulder and shuffles closer to look at his laptop screen. “Shut _up_ , dweeb. Anyways, what’re you watching?”

It’s at this point that Donghyuck remembers what exactly it is that he’d been watching, and he flushes. “Love Stage,” he mumbles, and just to avoid looking at Mark, takes a giant bite of the pastry. It’s delicious. He hates it.

“Oh, cool,” says Mark. “What’s it about?”

Donghyuck swallows thickly. “About a couple…”

“A romance?” Mark smiles, and Donghyuck absolutely _hates_ how non-judgmental Mark is.

“Yeah,” Donghyuck says, haltingly. “I guess.”

“Awesome! Can I watch with you?”

God, why is he so upbeat, fucking _hell_ — “Sure,” Donghyuck nods, and shifts over a few inches so Mark can settle in next to him, back against the wall. “I’m in the middle of an episode though… do you want to start over, or?”

“It’s okay, I don’t mind,” Mark says earnestly. “Just keep watching from here.”

Donghyuck’s inexplicably nervous as he leans forward to press play. (He knows it’s not inexplicable—he just doesn’t want to put a name to _why_ he’s nervous. It’s dumb. _He_ ’ _s_ dumb.)

 _Love Stage!!_ (two exclamation marks included) isn’t really just any romance anime. It’s a sappy, overly dramatic romance between two celebrities (kind of), but the most important part is this: the protagonists are two guys.

It’s a gay anime. Like. _Really_ gay.

And Donghyuck really isn’t sure how Mark will take it.

He’s tense the whole way through the episode, eyes unfocused and fingers clenched in the blankets so that Mark won’t see them trembling.

“Oh, wait,” says Mark, when he realizes, and there’s a furrow forming in between his brows. Donghyuck goes stock-still. “Is this…” Donghyuck’s heart slams in his chest, he might just throw up, “recent? I could’ve sworn I saw ads for it when we went to Japan…” And then he adds, pointing at the protagonist and his love interest (a boy), “those two are funny, though. They seem like great friends.”

... Mark is an idiot.


	5. five

It’s no secret that Mark hates skinship—absolutely despises it, often shying away from the other members’ grabby hands and tight hugs. Donghyuck is no exception to the rule. Which is rather unfortunate, because Donghyuck is a sucker for skinship. He craves it, craves warmth and its accompanying sense of validation; absolutely basks in it when Taeyong tells him he’s been good and then ruffles his hair, preens helplessly when Johnny wraps an arm around his shoulder and tells him ‘great job, little man’.

In short, Donghyuck loves skinship. He likes Mark even more, maybe, but Mark doesn’t appreciate it when Donghyuck clings, pushing him off with a wry smile and eye-roll… and it shouldn’t hurt but it does—it really, _really_ does. All Donghyuck wants is a hug, and Mark doesn’t even let him have that.

The thing is, Donghyuck gets particularly needy when sleep deprived, and comeback season is prime time for sleep deprivation and absolute fatigue. Now that Chain promotions are approaching, they’re sprinting the last stretch of preparations, and Donghyuck spends more time practicing in the dance studios than he does anywhere else—even the dorms. The same goes for the other members of 127, so Donghyuck really shouldn’t complain, but he’s sleepy and cranky and sore all over, and he just wants a hug.

Usually, with the Dreamies, the one who is most inclined to let Donghyuck wrap himself around them is Jeno, or Jaemin, and sometimes even Chenle—but with 127 Donghyuck finds that he has to rotate around the group so that individual members won’t get too sick of him draping himself across their equally as exhausted forms.

He’ll go to Taeyong first, and Taeyong will entertain him for a few moments, before pushing him off so that he can work through the choreography again with Jaehyun—who, for some reason, never takes any breaks. Then Taeil, who will pet his hair and try to be a good pillow—except he’s small and honestly kind of bony, so Donghyuck will move again, this time to Doyoung. Doyoung’s a much better pillow, and a good cuddler, except he talks too much, so Donghyuck will have to move again. Yuta’s nice but doesn’t sit still, Sicheng likes skinship even less than Mark, which leaves Johnny. Johnny is the best cuddler, Donghyuck finds.

He stays still, he doesn’t talk too much, and he lets Donghyuck lie on his lap and he’ll even stroke his hair while Donghyuck stretches out like a cat.

“You’re my favorite, Johnny-hyung,” Donghyuck mumbles sleepily, and nuzzles his face into Johnny’s stomach, where he smells like cologne and sweat. It smells familiar. It’s warm. The hand on his head cards through his hair, gentle and rhythmic, and Donghyuck drifts off.

He comes to maybe two hours later, to quiet mumbling.

“I don’t want to wake him,” it’s Taeyong. “We’re heading back to the dorm anyways, so one of you just carry him to the car…”

“I’ll—” Johnny.

“Let me do it.” It’s Mark. Donghyuck has to force himself not to react. Lame, skinny Mark, carrying him? If Donghyuck were any more awake, any more aware, he would think that this would be something worth panicking over. Mark, carrying him—realizing how _heavy_ he is. Somewhere, in the back of Donghyuck’s mind, there are alarms blaring. And _yet_.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. It’s just Hyuck, anyways.” And then there are arms pulling Donghyuck upright, someone slinging his arms around someone else’s shoulders, and hands gripping the back of his thighs. Donghyuck presses closer to the warmth, presses his nose right into the crook of Mark’s neck. It smells like him, amplified by a factor of ten, because he’s sweat-warm and flushed.

There’s a pause, where no one moves.

“He’s so _light_ ,” says Mark, almost disbelievingly. “This isn’t tiring at all.”

But Donghyuck is already asleep.

~

Two days into their Japanese debut, Donghyuck finds out this: Mark has a _girlfriend_.

First of all, what the fuck. Second of all, what the _fuck_.

Okay, maybe she isn’t exactly Mark’s girlfriend, but there’s definitely something fishy going on—Donghyuck can _feel_ it.

Koeun, back in Korea and in her dorm, video calls while Donghyuck is somewhere in between consciousness and unconsciousness in Mark’s hotel room. He’d begun to drift off while watching Marvel movies he’d downloaded illegally, and Mark is sitting on the couch by the window with Jaehyun’s laptop opened to Koeun’s pretty, pretty face.

“Hey, Koeun-ah,” he says, softly, like he’s afraid of waking Donghyuck up. “I missed you.”

Donghyuck squeezes his eyes shut and wishes he were dead.

“ _Minhyungie_ ,” she coos, and Donghyuck very nearly gags, “how are you? Are you too busy? Are you getting enough rest?” She sounds so effortlessly chipper—Donghyuck wants to push her into a ditch.

“It’s tiring, but it’s fun,” says Mark. “Look,” there’s the sound of the computer being shifted, “Hyuck fell asleep watching Marvel movies again.”

“Ah, lazy, lazy,” she says, and it’s teasing, but Donghyuck wants to leave. He hears Mark shuffle back into place, turning the laptop back to himself again.

Mark and Koeun talk for the next half hour or so—Donghyuck tries his best to tune them out.

It feels like forever before Mark hangs up.

Donghyuck takes a breath. Steels himself, and: “I didn’t know you and Koeun-noona were dating,” he says, tone deceptively light and almost teasing, as soon as the laptop lid is shut. Mark startles.

“You were awake?” There’s definitely guilt in his voice, eyes shifty. “And. Koeun and I… We aren’t dating.”

“No?” Donghyuck’s tone is almost cruel. “It seems like you are. Or, you want to be.”

There’s something in the pit of his stomach that wants to stop, that doesn’t want to hear the words of confirmation that are sure to come from Mark. And yet. There’s that emptiness that _aches_ , urges him to push at it, makes him want to feel that thick, twisting pain in his gut.

“We aren’t dating,” Mark reiterates. Then he draws his knees to his chest, bites his lower lip. “You can’t tell anybody,” he whispers.

Oh, it hurts. It really, really hurts.

“I won’t,” says Donghyuck instead. “What do you think I am? Some sort of snitch? No way.”

Mark smiles at him, grateful, and Donghyuck has to look away.


	6. six

For the duration of Japan, Donghyuck rooms with Sicheng. For the most part, Donghyuck is on the fence about whether or not that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Sicheng doesn’t give two shits, which is great, but he’s also kind of oblivious to Donghyuck’s moods, which is… slightly less great.

“Donghyuck-ah,” Sicheng says, in his slow, ambling sort of voice, one evening, after schedules are over and he _should_ be exhausted but somehow isn’t. “Do you wanna play games?”

Donghyuck absolutely does _not_ want to play any games, _thankyouverymuch_.

But Sicheng is looking at him, with those warm, honest eyes that remind him of the way Mark looks at him sometimes, so Donghyuck smiles weakly and tells him, “yeah, sure, Winwin-hyung.”  

And, despite Donghyuck’s initial hesitance, he finds that it’s a welcome respite.

Sicheng doesn’t ask questions, only swears when he loses, and it’s kind of funny, so Donghyuck finds himself laughing halfway through their game. Sicheng is boisterous and fun and a little bit dumb (although Donghyuck knows that’s mostly because the boy struggles to express himself sometimes, not because he’s _actually_ dumb), and Donghyuck finds, that after a while of just playing, his spirits are higher.

There’s a look in Sicheng’s eyes.

(Maybe he isn’t that clueless, after all.)

The one thing about Japan that Donghyuck can safely say is this: there is a _lot_ of food. He knows this, because Yuta and Taeyong are constantly walking into the hotel with arms loaded with snacks and packs of ramen. (He himself is guilty of buying packs to save and eat back in Korea—they’re _delicious_ , okay?) But the thing is—when they’re on tour in a foreign country, even though they’re busy, the members and staff always find time to load the boys up with treats and new snacks for them to try.

Of course, diets are a thing, but since they’re exercising so much and moving around so much, and because they’re also healthy young men with black holes for stomachs, the staff don’t bother too much and give them free reign with food. This would be fine, if it weren’t for the fact that literally everyone else aside from Donghyuck eats happily and with gusto, and often urge him to do the same.  

To say that Donghyuck is watching what he eats every second of the day would be a lie. He’s busy enough, entirely swept up in the rush of promotions, to sometimes forget to pay mind to what he’s eating. If Johnny walks in with an armful of green tea KitKats, then Donghyuck will grab one.

But, more often than not, he’ll forgo meals to go sightseeing, or play games. He thinks he’s casual enough about it to not alert the members, but here’s the thing: Mark might be an oblivious idiot most of the time, but he’s also one hell of an observant bastard when he really tries.

So, one afternoon, in a short lull between interviews and their next stage, Donghyuck says this: “I’m going to my room to play some games,” and Mark goes: “I’ll go with you, Hyuck-ah. You said you wanted to try out the new update for that rhythm game the other day…” _For fuck’s sake, Mark_.

Donghyuck smiles tightly at him. “Of course, Mark- _hyung_ ,” he says, saccharine sweet, and the other members exchange somewhat concerned, mostly curious glances, but Mark doesn’t seem to notice as he makes his way to the elevators.  Donghyuck rolls his eyes.

The walk to Donghyuck and Sicheng’s hotel room is strangely quiet. There’s usually never any silence between Mark and Donghyuck, mostly because Donghyuck never shuts up, and Mark rambles whenever there are gaps in the conversation. Donghyuck kind of wants the ground to open up and swallow him whole. He stares resolutely at the floor and fiddles with the hem of his shirt.

“We have to talk,” Mark says when they close the door behind them, and he sounds so serious it makes Donghyuck shrivel up a little.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Donghyuck quips, trying his best to keep his tone light. “That’s mean, boo-boo.”

Mark only stares at him. “I’m serious, Hyuck. I need to talk to you.”

“Fine,” Donghyuck shrugs, and throws himself onto the bed. “So, talk.” He rolls over so that he’s halfway on his side, halfway on his stomach, right arm flung over the bottom half of his face. He eyes Mark with as much disinterest as his face will allow. His steady gaze is what seems to start to throw Mark off—he can see it in the little things, the way the older boy sucks his lower lip into his mouth, the way he swallows and twiddles his thumbs.

“I… yesterday,” Mark’s voice cracks just the slightest bit. He clears his throat. “Yesterday… you asked of Koeun and I were dating.”

“You said you weren’t,” Donghyuck drones, monotone despite the growing lump in his throat, “and then told me not to tell. I assume that’s code for ‘we’re secretly dating but we can’t let management or the fans find out ever’.”

Mark frowns. “What? No. We’re… we’re actually not dating.” He bites his lower lip here, and it’s already beginning to look over-pink and puffy. “That was the truth. It’s just…” he lowers his voice, as if there might be someone listening. Donghyuck doesn’t know if he wants to slap him or kiss him silly. Probably both. “But… I,” he swallows and it’s actually audible, Donghyuck could laugh until he cried, “I really like her.” Mark goes very pink. “I think she might like me too.”

“Wow,” says Donghyuck, very flatly. “What do you expect me to say? Congratulations? ‘Fighting’ on actually asking Koeun out? Mark- _hyung_ ,” again, the word ‘hyung’ is dripping with poorly-concealed derision, “you are seriously overestimating my interest in your private love-life if you thought this could be classified as a serious heart-to-heart.”

“Donghyuck,” and _great_ , there Donghyuck goes, hurting the poor boy’s feelings—Mark’s eyes have gone big and round and he looks very much like a puppy that’s been kicked, “I… your opinions and thoughts matter to me. I thought…”

“What.” Donghyuck cuts him off, laughs without any humor. “You thought _what._ That I would care? That this would be of any significance to me at all aside from knowing that your new ‘relationship’,” he makes quotation marks with his middle and forefingers, spitting the word mockingly, “is risking everything we’ve built so far with NCT? Newsflash, _hyung_ , I’m not here to be your personal therapist, or your human diary. I’m not here to listen to your petty, self-absorbed non-problems. I couldn’t care less if you were dating Koeun, or if you discovered that you’re suddenly attracted to boys, or, I don’t know, freaking _dogs_ —because that isn’t any of my business, and I don’t know why you would think otherwise.”

“I don’t like dogs _or_ boys in that way, Donghyuck, what are you going on about, that’s disgusting—”

_Disgusting—_

Donghyuck laughs, again, loud and so, so angry. “What the _hell_. Is that all you picked up out of that entire spiel? Mark, I don’t know how to make this any clearer to you. I. Don’t. Care. You like Koeun, Koeun likes you too. Great. Fantastic. Congratu- _fucking_ -lations.”

“Hyuck,” Mark’s frowning now, less so hurt and more so annoyed, now, “what’s wrong with you? Why are you being such a dick?”

 “I don’t know, you tell me!” Donghyuck throws his hands up into the air, laughs because nothing is funny and everything hurts, laughs because he can’t believe he’s in love with a _boy_ who likes a girl and is so oblivious, laughs because he hates his own body and everything else about himself. Laughs because if he doesn’t, he’ll start crying, and if he starts crying, he’s scared he’ll never stop.

“Fuck off, Lee Donghyuck,” Mark snarls, and oh, there goes the full name. “I don’t know what’s up with you, but you better figure it out, asshole.”

“Ooh, the full name,” Donghyuck mocks, “pulling out the big guns now are we, _Lee Minhyung_?”

Fists clenched, Mark’s entire face has gone red with suppressed anger. Donghyuck grins at the sight, because riling up Mark is always fun—because what else is he good for besides making Mark hate him when he won’t love him back?

“You’re awful,” hisses Mark. _He is, he really is._

“C’mon now,” urges Donghyuck, and scrambles to get himself upright on his knees on the bed. He leans forward, closer to Mark. Mark recoils, and Donghyuck welcomes the ache with a smile. “Hit me. I know you want to. Don’t be a pussy.”

“This is messed up,” Mark says. “You don’t mean what you’re saying.”

“Sure, I do. I’ll say it again. _Hit me_.”

Mark turns on his tail and leaves, expression unyielding but eyes unsettled.

The door closes with a quiet _click_.

Silence.

And then—

Donghyuck grabs the pillow nearest to him, jams his face into it and _yells_ , yells until he can’t anymore, throat wet and clogged with unshed tears. ( _You’re awful. Awful_.)

 _The absolute worst,_ Donghyuck agrees, and bites into the pillow to stop himself from crying.


	7. seven

Donghyuck’s breaking apart at the seams—there’s no one there to stop him from falling, he thinks, drily, as he sits in a bath filled to the brim with steaming water and scented bubbles. Sicheng’s gone to spend the night over in Taeil and Yuta’s room, because they’re going out for a late movie and he doesn’t want to wake Donghyuck up when he comes back late.  

This means that Donghyuck has all the time in the world (or just this one night), and more privacy than he could ever want, to wallow in self-pity and regret. Why had he snapped at Mark earlier? Jealousy, perhaps. Jealousy that Mark could so easily find a perfect, pretty girl to fall in- _like_ with. Or catharsis, maybe. Directing his feelings towards a different route to try and make it hurt less.

“You’re trying to martyr yourself,” he finds himself saying aloud. There’s something attractive about martyring himself, he must admit. Some very romantic, heroic quality to the idea. Mostly though, he knows, it’s petty and stupid and endlessly childish, but he’s only eighteen and he’s always had a penchant for melodrama.

He should apologize. He knows he should.

But for as long as he’s known Mark, ever since he’d burrowed his way under the older boy’s skin at age twelve and gotten him to hate him so much he almost left the company, ever since he somehow found his way, floundering, to Mark’s weak heart, for as many times they have fought, Mark has always, _always_ , been the first one to say sorry. Donghyuck is nothing if not prideful, and despite his adorable public persona, he’s never quite learned to apologize graciously.

Most of their differences can be resolved as easily as the fights picked, Donghyuck sauntering into Mark’s room with a, “what’s up, loser, look at this cool new song I found,” followed by Mark’s, “oh, shit, _really_? That’s so cool.”

Donghyuck thinks that this time might be different. Head tilting back against the cold porcelain of the tub, Donghyuck closes his eyes and sighs.

He is so, _so_ tired.

He groans and sinks down until water closes in over his head. It’s quiet here, alone and soothed by the all-encompassing heat of the water. When his lungs begin to burn in protest, he slowly lets himself rise above the surface. He breathes in, and the rush of it feels so sweet it’s almost dizzying. He closes his eyes. Whatever. He’ll deal with it tomorrow.

~

The following morning is a whirlwind of activity—Donghyuck hardly gets a moment to breathe, let alone worry about apologies, because the staff are in his room at 4:30 a.m., pulling him up and rushing him towards the group minivan. (If anyone notices that he looks a bit more haggard, if his eyes are a little more red-rimmed than his exhaustion should allow, no one says a thing.)

Mark’s already inside, in the back, squashed uncomfortably between Taeyong and Jaehyun, but he’s already nodded off, so there goes whatever Donghyuck’s plans to talk to him could have been. He sits nearer to the front, and he too, soon, is fast asleep. In the face of work, their problems are meaningless.

He’s shaken awake by a vaguely drowsy Doyoung who pushes past him. Everyone else is already out of the car. Mark is standing next to Johnny, still sleep-worn with a cheek pressed against Johnny’s bicep. Donghyuck looks away, finds that there’s a tight feeling in his chest that squeezes hard whenever he looks at Mark for a moment longer than he has to.

There’s no time to dwell on his own thoughts, and Donghyuck’s eyes drop to the ground as they’re ushered into the venue for rehearsal.

Everyone is tired, so no one notices that Mark and Donghyuck don’t speak, hardly even look at one another. Donghyuck, usually NCT 127’s energizer bunny, is withdrawn and quiet, and the only acknowledgment he gets is Johnny passing by and reaching over to ruffle his hair.

“Chin up, Hyuckie,” he says, and smiles, soft and warm like home. Donghyuck smiles back.

“Of course,” he says, and that’s that.

Rehearsal passes. It’s 9 a.m., time for a snack and then they’re on the way to an interview, halfway across town. Into the van, they go. Again, Mark sits in the back, far away from Donghyuck, and this time Donghyuck stares resolutely out the window and clenches a fist against his thigh.

Sometimes, he really hates being a teenager with a career. He’s moody, awful most of the times, and he has to grit his teeth and get through it all with a smile, because God forbid he shows any negative emotion, lest the netizens eat him up alive. It’s laughable, really.

“C’mon, kids,” says their manager. “We’re going to have to rush through this one before the concert and then the flight. I know you’re tired. Smile through it.”

 _Smile through it_.

Donghyuck’s starting to wonder if he still can.

~

Post-concert and beyond exhausted, Donghyuck thinks maybe now he should talk to Mark. They’re doing last minute clean-up backstage, and Donghyuck has everything squared away already. Mark seems to be done, too, leaning against the door with his arms crossed, watching and waiting for everyone to finish up. All their bags have been taken to the van already.

“Mark,” Donghyuck says, and it comes out a little bit shaky despite himself. “I,”

He doesn’t get to say any more. Mark straightens from where he had been leaning against the doorframe, and looks down, away from Donghyuck. “We should get going,” Mark mumbles, “we have a flight to catch.” And he brushes past, taking care not to touch him at all.

It takes Donghyuck a moment to grasp the fact that Mark has completely shut him down. _Ah,_ he realizes. _So, it’s going to be like this_. It aches, like someone has reached into his chest and wrapped a stubborn fist around his heart, squeezed hard and tight and then pulled it right on out before stomping on it just for the sake of making it hurt.

Donghyuck read somewhere that when subjected to enough emotional stress, people’s chordae tendineae—or, in layman’s terms, _heartstrings_ —can physically break, snap right in half. Real-life heartbreak. He wonders if this’ll be enough to set him off and finally kill him. He chuckles, because it’s kind of funny, in a sad sort of way.

 _Mark Lee is an idiot_ , he tells himself, and stuffs his hands into his pockets so no one can see the way they shake. Halfway furious with himself, halfway furious with Mark, he thinks, _Mark Lee is an idiot who doesn’t deserve a boy who is as amazing as me, obviously._  And then he can’t help but smile because for someone who’s supposed to be a good liar, Donghyuck sure can’t seem to fool himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is kind of short, but it's mostly meant to be a transitional chapter! the next one should have more content. honestly my brain's kind of fried and i keep finding more mistakes every time i read through it bUT if i dont post it now i think i'll combust out of sheer frustration so... here u go!


	8. eight

Mark doesn’t crack. This means:

He doesn’t speak to Donghyuck unless it’s necessary (as in, they’re _on air_ and can’t afford to snub one another), hardly even looks at him, and basically just acts like Donghyuck doesn’t even exist. It’s frustrating, to say the least, and it absolutely goes beyond everything Donghyuck’s come to learn about Mark over the past six, seven years he’s known him. Mark is a pushover. Or at least, he _was_ —before Donghyuck pissed him off, freaked him out, or whatever it was that’s making him act like Donghyuck isn’t even worth looking at.

And that isn’t even to say that Donghyuck hasn’t been trying to talk to Mark, because he absolutely has. The first few days had been hard—humiliating, actually—on his part to swallow his pride and go find Mark. But the longer the charade went on, Donghyuck found that his desperation had begun to drown out any hesitation, and he tried, really, _really_ hard to get Mark to talk to him.

Honestly, before this, Donghyuck would’ve thought it impossible to avoid someone you lived with. Mark, though, seems to do it with ease.

This leaves Donghyuck in somewhat of a dilemma. How is he supposed to talk to Mark—let alone apologize to him—if the boy refuses to be left in a room alone with him for even two minutes?

Donghyuck wants to complain to someone, but that’ll mean having to explain himself, and he figures that’s far more trouble than it’s worth. Instead, he finds himself in the bathroom, with the door locked and the shower running, staring into the mirror trying to give himself a pep talk. Donghyuck has got his _own_ back, dammit.

“This is just a phase,” he tells himself encouragingly. “Mark isn’t going to ignore me forever.” He thinks back to last night, when he’d woken up thirsty and padded to the kitchen to grab himself a cup of water. Mark had been on the couch on his laptop, and as soon as he saw Donghyuck, he slammed his laptop shut so hard Donghyuck thought the screen just might crack, before promptly throwing himself across the couch to lie down facing away from Donghyuck.

“Alright,” Donghyuck tries to rationalize again. “So that… that might’ve hurt. A little.” He blinks at himself. His tired reflection sneers back. _Liar, liar, pants on fire._ “A lot,” he corrects, and then stares down at his hands, which are clenching the porcelain sides of the sink so hard his knuckles are starting to go white. “Okay. So. I’m not used to this,” he continues, still mostly at his reflection. “Mark isn’t this mean to me, usually.” Sometimes Mark will say something kind of mean, but he’s also kind of a pussy, so he would apologize straight away if he was worried about hurting Donghyuck’s feelings.

Donghyuck’s reflection stares back at him, unblinkingly, and he sighs, on the edge of defeated. “Yeah, alright, and I usually don’t blow up at him like that, either.” He pauses. “I heard that there was a study done—it basically said that if I talk to myself in third person, my anxiety levels will go down.” He tilts his head, considers this for a moment.

After a long while: “Donghyuckie is sad,” he concludes.

It’s a pretty solid conclusion.

He takes a few more minutes in the bathroom, before steeling himself and leaving to get changed. It’s their first dance practice as NCT Dream since he and Mark returned from Japan. Donghyuck is only looking forward to it a little bit, for the other members’ sakes—mostly, he wants to crawl into a hole and die.

Taking care to dress as simply as he possibly can, in a tee and old pair of sweats, Donghyuck grabs his jacket and heads out the door. “I’m going to the dance studios,” he says to nobody in particular, and the door closes behind him.

There’s a part of Donghyuck that’s scared of what’s coming, of confrontation, of the other Dreamies noticing that there’s something wrong with him and Mark. Noticing that there’s something wrong with _him_. And then there’s the bigger part of him, the part that’s so tired of having to force himself to do things, to get up in the morning and act like a functional human being, the part that has to be the mood-maker, NCT’s brilliant happy pill. And to pile on to Donghyuck’s already heaping mountain of worries and responsibilities—this thing with Mark? It’s _exhausting_.

Donghyuck is an extrovert. He thrives on human interaction, finds comfort in warm hugs, and clings to his favorite people. But along with that is this debilitating fear of rejection, of not being liked. And beyond all that is the apprehension to _show_ just how scared he is. Donghyuck is too prideful to ask for advice from anyone else, embarrassed about the hole he’s dug himself into. There’s no way he’s about to tell anyone that his own securities along with his feelings for Mark had ended up entirely alienating the older boy.

It’s _stupid_ , isn’t it?

He lowers his head against the wind and stuffs his hands into his pockets. He doesn’t want to think anymore, doesn’t want to live inside his own head.

~

“ _Hyung_!” Chenle is the first one who notices Donghyuck shucking off his coat by the door. “I missed you!” And Donghyuck’s getting swarmed, by Chenle and Jaemin and Jeno, who wrap him up in their arms and ruffle his hair and laugh and tell him how much he’s missed at practice, and Donghyuck grins back at them, kisses Chenle on the forehead, blows Jaemin a kiss, and gives Jeno a fist bump.

“I missed you too,” Donghyuck coos, and there’s Jisung and Renjun who smile and wave hi at him. Mark doesn’t seem to have arrived yet—neither has their dance instructor.

He spends the next five minutes catching up with the other boys before the door slides open and Mark and their instructor, Kim Dongmin, walk in together. Mark is drowning in a too-big hoodie, face bare, decorated only with cute wire-rimmed glasses that make him look like Harry Potter. He isn’t looking at Donghyuck, but he’s smiling at the other Dreamies, and it’s so wide and warm that it makes Donghyuck’s stomach clench.

Almost unknowingly, Donghyuck’s hand lifts to fist in his own shirt, right over his chest. It feels as if his heart’s ready to burst right out of his ribcage—but he forces it in. He has to.

“Donghyuck!” Says Dongmin, jovially, jolting Donghyuck from his thoughts. “There you are! We’ve missed you at practice. I take it promotions went well? I was just saying to Mark,” he reaches forward and pinches Donghyuck’s cheek. “I hope you weren’t slacking. It looks like you two ate well on the trip? That’s good—you’ll need lots of energy.”

“What do you mean, it looks like we ate well?” Donghyuck responds with a teasing grin, but his chest tightens (for a different reason, now) at the words.

“You must have put on a bit of weight,” Dongmin laughs. “Your cute cheeks are back again!”

Donghyuck doesn’t like the sound of that. “I haven’t put on weight,” _he probably has_ , “and my cheeks are always cute,” he pouts, and it’s so easy to brush it off like it doesn’t mean anything to him, and Dongmin doesn’t pick up on Donghyuck’s inner turmoil at all as he grins and ruffles his hair and claps his hands together.

“Gather up, kids,” Dongmin calls, “we have work to do.”

Donghyuck gets into position beside Mark and stares at the side of his head. Mark turns his head the other way.

Donghyuck just wants to go home.

Practice proceeds without much fanfare, and it goes well enough for their first day back. Donghyuck keeps his head low for most of the three hours—just in case he makes eye contact with Mark, because god forbid _that_ ever happens, and also to avoid having to look at himself in the mirror.

When practice draws to a close, it’s Jeno who’s throwing an arm around Donghyuck’s shoulder, grinning wide and oh-so-bright. Donghyuck’s chest hurts looking at his smile.

“Hyuckie,” says Jeno, “do you wanna go grab some burgers with the rest of 00-line?”

Donghyuck smiles a little, and shakes his head. “Sorry Jeno, I’m pretty tired. I just wanna go home and take a long shower, you feel?”

Jeno pouts a little. “Yeah, alright. But you have to come next time, okay?”

“Of course,” Donghyuck says, and smiles when Jeno brings two hands up to squish his cheeks together. “I promise, okay? So, don’t be too disappointed. I know you’ve missed my wonderful, _amazing_ , utterly impeccable presence.”

Jeno’s expression suddenly turns somber, and there’s this distinct sense of whiplash—it’s always amazing to see how fast Jeno can switch gears. “I have,” he tells Donghyuck, seriously. “Missed you, I mean. It’s weird without you and Mark-hyung. I really mean it, so hurry up and rest so we can play together.”

The feeling that blooms inside of Donghyuck is warm and sticky and he smiles so wide at Jeno that his face goes stiff. Why couldn’t he have fallen in love with beautiful, sweet, _lovely_ Jeno instead? Things would be easier, then.

Donghyuck is lying to himself again. Loving Jeno would fix nothing. But maybe, just _maybe_ , it would make this horrible aching hole in the middle of his chest hurt just a little less.

“I love you,” Donghyuck says suddenly, and he really means it. “Really, Jeno.”

“I love you too,” Jeno says, eyes warm and endlessly bright. “Take proper care of yourself, okay, Hyuck?” He leans in and gives Donghyuck a quick squeeze—and when had Jeno gotten so big, so mature? It’s been the blink of an eye. The years have passed, and they’ve both grown up. Jeno’s become someone reliable, and Donghyuck is so grateful.

He watches Jeno leave with the others. Mark is long gone. Donghyuck is alone again.

But somehow, he feels just a little lighter.

Tomorrow is another day.  


	9. nine

Tomorrow might be another day, but it sure isn’t any better than yesterday. Donghyuck briefly considers locking himself in his room and refusing to leave. Some days are just bad from the get-go, for no reason in particular, and this is one of those days. He’d woken up, already lethargic, limbs heavy, eyes heavier.  

Mark still isn’t speaking to him, and it’s silent in 127’s dorm—almost all of the hyungs have all gone out for their own individual schedules, save for Sicheng who seems to want to sleep the day away. Essentially, Donghyuck is in the dorm alone. It’s only nine a.m., and he’s curled up in bed, with Jaehyun’s laptop tilted on its side so that he can watch anime more comfortably. Donghyuck’s own laptop is charging, and Jaehyun doesn’t care when Donghyuck uses his laptop anyways, so.

(Donghyuck pretends that he doesn’t know exactly where Jaehyun keeps his stash of porn—besides, Donghyuck isn’t exactly into girls with massive swinging tits.)

Donghyuck had woken up somewhat earlier than he’d wanted, body sore and somehow heavy, exhaustion laid deep in his bones. He hadn’t been able to go back to sleep.

He should probably get up and do something. Eat, maybe. He hasn’t eaten in over 24 hours. But that’s no matter, really. He isn’t hungry. To be honest, he’s almost a little nauseous. Donghyuck sighs, and pauses the episode in the middle. He should get up. Go to the studios, maybe. Get some practice in before work picks up again and he doesn’t have time alone. It’ll be good to get a sweat going.

Tired, he pushes himself to his feet, and instantly feels his knees go weak. He stumbles, swears, grabs at the corner of his desk. Why the hell is his head so fuzzy? He’s somewhere beyond lightheaded, the rush of standing up so quickly has left him stunned, blinking away black spots in his vision. There’s a concentrated throbbing behind his eyes, not exactly pain, that spreads and pulses all the way down to his ears. He inhales shakily.

“Enough,” he says, and then the feeling passes.

Why is it so cold? It’s almost July, and the AC’s always been wonky in his and Jaehyun’s room—he should be sweating like a sinner in church. Donghyuck frowns. He grabs a hoodie, and his tongue darts out to swipe at his lower lip. It’s chapped and tastes metallic, like blood.

He tugs a baseball cap down low over his head, pulls a mask over his mouth. It’s precaution, a habit that’s been engrained in him by his managers and by his members, but Donghyuck doesn’t even know why. He isn’t striking to look at, doesn’t particularly warrant any second glances. Not like Taeyong, who’s _beautiful_ , or Johnny, who is tall and striking—or any of the other members, really. Even his so-called fans, he thinks, wouldn’t give him the time of day if they were to see him in passing, just on the streets. He’s plain. Nothing beyond this arbitrary title of ‘celebrity’. He’s just a boy. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Donghyuck shoves his hands into his pockets, and is out the door.

There’s something itching underneath his skin, beneath this veneer of exhaustion. Like cabin-fever, except he hasn’t even properly stayed in the dorm long enough for it to be that. It’s almost anticipation, except Donghyuck knows better than to look forward to anything. As if ants are crawling under his skin, Donghyuck is jumpy, paranoid, chest throbbing and head thrumming.

He’s itching to get moving—to work until he can’t feel his limbs anymore, can’t feel any part of himself anymore.

At the company building, Donghyuck’s lucky enough to find an empty practice room. It’s one of the smaller ones, ones that the company doesn’t like showing to the public for that reason exactly, but it’s just what Donghyuck needs. It’s been a while since he’s properly practiced any Dream choreo on his own—he’s spent the past several months focused on 127 promotions, so he figures it’s about high time he gets to buckle down and focus on his own form, rather than syncing up with the group.

The warning signs are there. Donghyuck just doesn’t see it—or, maybe he does, but he’s just convinced himself into believing otherwise.

He’s on the verge of collapse, it’s obvious. He hasn’t eaten a solid meal in maybe two days, and hasn’t eaten at all in over twenty-four hours. He’s overworked, he’s stressed, he’s maybe a little dehydrated, and he tells himself that the pounding in his head is nothing to be concerned about. He’s stupid stubborn, and three repeats into My First and Last when he goes to take a dive onto the floor, he gets down and finds that he can’t get back up.

“ _Dammit_ ,” he snarls, and finds himself on the verge of tears, clenched fist coming down weakly to hit the scuffed floors. “God _fucking_ dammit.” He takes a moment to breathe. The impossible weakness washes past him. Somewhat. He gets to his knees, and then to his feet. He’s so dizzy he has to pause for a second, hands braced on his thighs, breathing so heavy it makes his lungs rattle in his chest.

The door slams open, and Donghyuck whips around to stare.

It’s Yukhei, who looks a little startled to see him. They stare at each other in complete silence for a second, before Yukhei’s face lights up and he’s beaming, all pretty and excited. “Haechan!” Yukhei says happily, and Donghyuck opens his mouth to say hi.

He inhales. Exhales. He straightens, takes a step forward. And then his knees are buckling beneath him, and to his absolute horror and embarrassment, he’s pitching forwards, hurtling towards the ground.

“Woah there!” Yukhei’s reactions sure are _fast_ for someone who has such a dumb smile, Donghyuck thinks, and instead of hitting the ground, he falls into Yukhei, who’s too warm and too big and grips his arms way too tight. “Hyuckie?” Donghyuck wants to laugh a little—the juvenile nickname sounds funny when it’s coming from Yukhei’s too-deep voice. He would laugh if he didn’t think he might throw up. Yukhei’s frowning now, and Donghyuck doesn’t like the way it looks on his face. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Donghyuck says, through clenched teeth. “I’m alright. Thanks, Yukhei.”

“I don’t think so,” says Yukhei, and for all the shit Donghyuck gives him about being clueless, Yukhei’s a lot more observant than he’s given him credit for. “You’re really sweaty. And you’re really hot.” He says the last line in English.

Donghyuck blinks. “Really. Hot,” he repeats. “Excuse me?”

Yukhei rolls his eyes. “Fever,” he says, shortly, and one giant hand comes up to feel Donghyuck’s forehead, which is, in fact, burning up, and completely drenched in sweat. Yukhei pushes Donghyuck’s bangs back away from his face, and then all of a sudden, he’s coming in so fast Donghyuck doesn’t even have time to react, save for a flustered squeak. Yukhei doesn’t kiss him. Only presses his forehead to Donghyuck’s, eyes scrunched shut in concentration, before pulling back after a moment.

“ _High_ fever,” he says, grimly. “You need to see a doctor, Haechan.”

Donghyuck snaps to attention at that. “No!” He snarls, and heaves a push against Yukhei’s chest. He stumbles back, but Yukhei grabs him again before he can fall. Donghyuck’s panting. “No,” he repeats, and this time his voice comes out small. “No doctor.”

“Why?” Yukhei’s frowning for real now, and he lowers the two of them to the ground. Donghyuck’s honestly too dizzy to try and leave.

“Why?” Donghyuck knows why. He knows that if he goes to a doctor they’ll tell him what he already knows. That he hasn’t been properly taking care of himself, that at this rate, he’s only going to be a burden on NCT. He knows this. He doesn’t want to hear it coming from someone else. “Because it’s not that serious,” he says instead to Yukhei. “I think I’ve just been tired lately.”

Yukhei squints at him. “That sounds fake.”

Donghyuck can’t help but laugh a little, leaning in close to rest his head on Yukhei’s shoulder. It’s been so long since a member’s been kind enough to let him cling for so long. Yukhei’s big and warm and it kind of feels like snuggling with Johnny because they’re both massive, and Donghyuck can’t help but be secretly thrilled.

“I’m taking you back to the dorm, then.”

“There’s no one there,” Donghyuck pouts a little at the thought. Yukhei smirks at him now, and throws his head back to get his bangs out of his eyes.

“What do you mean, _no one_? I’m here, aren’t I?”

Donghyuck giggles. “My hero,” he teases.

“Exactly,” says Yukhei, and Donghyuck almost sure he can see the older boy’s chest puffing up with pride. “Wait here for a second. I’m gonna go buy you some orange juice and a candy bar from the vending machines. I think sugar is good.”

He gets up so abruptly Donghyuck almost gets pushed over but Yukhei just grins and steadies him with a warm hand. Donghyuck smiles up at Yukhei, a little dopily. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t talk to Yukhei that much. He really should spend more time with the older boy. He’s definitely a lot less heartache to deal with than his same-aged Canadian counterpart.

~

“You really don’t have to,” Donghyuck says anxiously, when Yukhei stands up after watching Donghyuck down the orange juice.

“Yes, I do,” Yukhei reasons. “You can’t really walk. So, I’m saying. I’ll give you a piggyback ride to the dorm.”

“I can _walk_ ,” Donghyuck argues. “Besides. I’m heavy. I’ll break your back.”

“You can’t be heavy,” says Yukhei, dismissively. “You’re _this_ ,” he stretches out the word and holds his hands about a foot apart, “little.”

Donghyuck scoffs at that, pride a little wounded. “Hey,” he chides, and Yukhei outright laughs at him.

“Come on,” Yukhei urges. “You said I’m your superhero, right? I’m a big, strong man! Look at these arms! Carrying you will be nothing.”

Despite himself, Donghyuck’s insides go all warm and sticky, and he has to bite back a near-hysterical giggle.

“Shut up,” he tells Yukhei, but then lets himself drape his arms over Yukhei’s shoulders as he squats down in front of him. Yukhei pulls Donghyuck’s wrists so that his hands hang, crossed, at Yukhei’s chest. He reaches back, each hand grabbing hold of each thigh and then stands, like Donghyuck really weighs nothing at all.

“See?” Yukhei boasts. “You’re super light, and I’m super strong. We will be back at the dorm before you know it.”

Donghyuck tucks his face into Yukhei’s neck. “Whatever,” he mumbles, and feels Yukhei’s back rumbling in laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok im just gonna pretend this chapter isnt the result of me missing yukhei while preparing for my course's finals or whatever but. thank u all so much for all of the kudos nd nice comments!! i've been trying my best to reply to every single comment so thank you so much for all the sweet words it rlly motivates me nd means a lot <3


	10. ten

“You know,” Yukhei says, from where he has his head on Donghyuck’s lap. They’ve spent the past four hours in 127’s living room watching some k-drama Yukhei had said he really liked. “You’re…” he struggles for a moment, trying to organize his thoughts to formulate a sentence in a language he isn’t at all familiar with. “You seem… sad. Lately.”

Donghyuck takes a deep breath, ready to deny the accusation, but Yukhei pushes himself up and stares straight into Donghyuck’s eyes. Donghyuck’s a liar but he can’t bring himself to lie to Yukhei. “A bit,” he says instead. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Yukhei’s brow furrows.

“I… I must’ve scared you, earlier.”

“Nothing scares me,” Yukhei says in complete seriousness. “I was only _kind_ of worried. Just a little! But now you’re better.” Yukhei pats Donghyuck’s shoulder. As soon as they’d gotten back to the dorm, Yukhei had wrapped Donghyuck up in a blanket burrito, a little too tight and a little too high up his chin so that it had been a little difficult to breathe, but Donghyuck had laughed and let him anyways.

Donghyuck shrugs noncommittally, and Yukhei asks, “Why are you sad?”

He pauses. Wonders if it’s okay to tell Yukhei about all the worries that have been eating him up on the inside. About all his insecurities, about every little thing that’s had him crying alone in the showers for the past few months. But he’s a coward. Instead he says, softly, “Have you ever… liked someone who didn’t like you back?”

Understanding dawns on Yukhei’s face, but he’s got the sense to not ask Donghyuck to elaborate. “Of course,” he says, carefully, and he’s looking at Donghyuck’s face with this long, searching stare that makes Donghyuck squirm. “But…” his voice is slow. Gentle. “Not like you, I don’t think.”

Donghyuck can’t help but crack a bitter smile. “I didn’t think so.”

“You know,” Yukhei says, and he lets Donghyuck reach over to play with his fingers. “I had a friend… in Hong Kong. A really good friend. Who said…” he pauses, searching for the words. “Who supposedly loved me,” he decides on. “Or, at least… liked me a lot.”

Donghyuck’s wide-eyed, staring at the older boy. “How did you know? Did she tell you herself?”

“He told me,” Yukhei says, and Donghyuck’s heart stutters in his chest. _He_. “We were… we were drunk, and playing around. He kissed me. And then he confessed.” Yukhei smiles a little at the memory, and tilts his head back so that he’s leaning against the back of the couch.

“And then what?” Donghyuck whispers—whispers because speaking normally doesn’t seem right, because he’s scared of what the answer might be.

Yukhei inhales slowly. Exhales. “I said thank you. I was… flattered. But I didn’t like him that way.” Yukhei turns to look at Donghyuck. “And I was scared. I didn’t want to lose a friend. But it would have been… crueler, I think, to give him false hope. I told him I couldn’t love him like he wanted me to but I still wanted to be friends.” Yukhei runs a hand over his face, and Donghyuck can feel the frustration in him, the struggle to pick the right words, to tell the story _right_. “I. I told him that it was his choice. I wanted to stay friends. If he didn’t want to, I would be sad, but that was okay, too.”

Donghyuck is enraptured. His heart’s racing—it hits a little too close to home. He knows that if he were to ever tell Mark about his feelings, Mark would brush him off. Make a joke out of it. Be so incredibly, painfully awkward. Mark, Donghyuck thinks, might not actually even have as much sense as Yukhei did.

“What did he say?” Donghyuck asks.

Yukhei’s smile is nostalgic. “He cried a little, and told me I was mean,” he says. “And then he said he still wanted to stay friends.”

“Did you? Stay friends, I mean.”

“Yes,” Yukhei laughs a little. “At first, he was awkward. He tried too hard to be natural. And then we grew apart, because I think being around me made him sad. Thinking about that made me sad, sometimes. But then over time it got better. We became good friends again. I think it was because he got over his feelings, maybe. It’s hard to be friends with someone you like.”

Donghyuck’s hands curl around Yukhei’s. “That was very admirable of you,” he says. The words stick in his throat.

“What do you mean?”

“I think you did the right thing. You’re much… nicer than I’d thought.”

Yukhei smiles, a little clueless. “Thank you, Haechan.”

Donghyuck rests his head on Yukhei’s shoulder. “I’m glad you told me the story,” he admits. “I think you’re a pretty cool guy.”

“You are too,” Yukhei grins lopsidedly.

Yukhei keeps looking at him, all bright and smiley and oh-so-very handsome. All of a sudden, Donghyuck feels inexplicably flustered. “I’m going to the bathroom,” he stammers, abrupt and somewhat nervous.

“Careful,” says Yukhei cheerily. “If you get dizzy again, just yell, and I’ll save you.”

Donghyuck laughs a little. “Sure thing,” he says, and Yukhei happily pats Donghyuck’s thigh as he stands to go to the bathroom.

When he finds himself face-to-face with his reflection, Donghyuck frowns at himself. He’s very pink, either from how ruffled he is or from the fever. He hopes it’s the latter. He does feel much better now that he’s had the chance to rest a little bit, and aside from the slight dull throbbing at his temple, Donghyuck figures he’s faring quite well.

Just as he’s splashed some water on his face and is readying himself to go back into the living room, he hears the front door open and close. And then:

“Oh, Lucas? What’re you doing here?”

It’s Mark.

Donghyuck’s stomach drops right down to his toes, and he lets out somewhat of an embarrassing squeak before pulling the bathroom door shut again so that he can listen in. He _knows_ that if he goes out Mark will just brush past him again.

“Nothing much,” Donghyuck hears Yukhei say, voice only slightly muffled through the closed door. “Just hanging out with Haechan.”

There’s a short silence. “Donghyuck?” Mark asks, and there’s tension that hadn’t been there before.

“Yep,” answers Yukhei, rather chirpily. “We were watching a drama, but he’s in the bathroom right now! It’s been a while—maybe he’s taking a shit.”

Donghyuck gasps. “ _Yukhei_ ,” he hisses—that’s disgusting.

“Gross, Yukhei,” and of course Mark would be laughing at that.

There’s another moment. “Or,” Yukhei says, and Donghyuck can almost hear the frown in his voice. “He _is_ taking a long time… I hope he hasn’t fainted again. Maybe I should check?”

“ _Again_?” Mark demands. There’s a roughness in the words that Donghyuck isn’t expecting, and without meaning to, he shrinks back, a little cowed. “The hell do you mean, fainted _again_?”

“Oh,” says Yukhei, “right. I saw Haechan at the studio and I wanted to say hi, you know? So, I went to say hi! He turned around when I went in, and then he collapsed. He has a fever too, by the way. I think he overworked himself. So, I brought him back here!”

There’s a moment of terse silence. “What.” It sounds like Mark’s talking through clenched teeth. “He _collapsed_ and you didn’t think to tell anyone else? Tell the managers? Get him to a _hospital_? He has a _fever_ , Yukhei, the hell were you thinking?”

“Hey.” The easygoing lilt to Yukhei’s voice has almost entirely disappeared. Donghyuck’s almost certain he’s never heard Yukhei sound that stern. “Donghyuck said he didn’t want to.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, _Jesus,_ Lucas!” Mark’s almost yelling now. Donghyuck feels like crying. Helplessly, he feels his eyes well up. His throat feels thick with dread. He isn’t sure if it’s because of the fever, but even listening to the angry sound of Mark’s voice makes him almost panicky, sick to his very stomach.

“You didn’t even see him,” snaps Yukhei, and Donghyuck’s definitely never heard Yukhei sound this heated, ever. “He looked like he was about to cry, okay? He was so tired, Mark. He’s _been_ tired. Have you… have you even noticed?” Yukhei switches to English, now. “He’s _sad_ , Mark.”

There’s a silence and even all the way in the bathroom Donghyuck can tell it’s fraught with tension. “What do you mean, sad.”

“It means what it sounds like,” Yukhei’s frustrated. He’s started to stammer with the speed he’s talking, mixing bits of English into his sentences to string them all together. “He’s exhausted. He’s working himself to the bone. He’s sick and he doesn’t know how to deal with you when you’re ignoring him like this—and no, before you ask, he didn’t say anything, but anyone can see that you’re being mean him.”

“I’m not,” Mark interjects, and he sounds so defensive it almost hurts.

“Yes, you _are_ and you don’t even care what it’s doing to him.”

“You don’t understand, Lucas—”

“I don’t _have_ to understand to see that you or whatever it was that happened between you two is hurting him! He’s tired and he’s sick and he’s so _sad_ and no one has realized or seems to _care_. I’ve only spent one afternoon with him and he’s so _good_ but no one notices—”

“Yukhei.” Somehow, without noticing it, Donghyuck’s opened the bathroom door, and has walked out into the living room. He stands with his arms wrapped protectively around himself. “Please,” he sighs, and closes his eyes. There’s something welling up inside of him, something that feels like it’s fit to burst. He takes a moment to steady himself. “Stop. That’s enough.”

Mark’s staring at him with furrowed brows. “Donghyuck,” he starts, and he sounds helplessly confused, and the anger that had been there gives way to poorly concealed hurt.

“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck apologizes, cutting him off, and tries for a smile. It feels more like a grimace. He’s trembling. “Yukhei… Yukhei didn’t mean that.”

“The hell I didn’t—” Yukhei snarls, but Donghyuck stares at him, wide-eyed and pleading. Yukhei’s mouth snaps shut, and he slumps back into the couch sullenly, arms crossed over his chest.

“Don’t worry about it, Mark-hyung,” Donghyuck says, and his voice sounds reedy and thin even to his own ears. If he stays here just another moment longer, he just might cry.

So, he does what he knows best. He runs.

He turns heel and escapes, retreating into the safety of his and Jaehyun’s room, where he knows he’ll be left alone.

“Donghyuck!” He hears, a mix of both Yukhei and Mark, but he closes the door and bolts it shut. His heart is pounding, and he’s somewhere between exhausted and humiliated.

He sinks to the floor and hides his face in his knees. Yukhei had noticed, he thinks, and one small, terrible part of him is just a little bit glad. Glad that at least someone knows—knows that he’s beginning to fall apart, fray at the edges. He knows that the knowledge is nothing more than a burden. Knows that _he’s_ just a burden, but somehow, beyond the mortification of being picked apart, of being so clumsily exposed, he feels relieved. Perhaps even validated. Someone had _noticed_ , after all.

This is somewhat of a revelation, and Donghyuck’s embarrassed at his own thoughts. He’s selfish, he knows. He’s selfish and hopeless and _so_ ridiculous. He’s _pathetic_. No wonder Mark has been ignoring him—were he in the same position, he would do the same.

Since when had he become so weak?

“Since always, probably,” Donghyuck whispers to himself, and begins to laugh.

It hurts. Donghyuck’s beginning to grow used to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not the most satisfied with the way this chap turned out, but i really wanted to put something out before school really picks up and starts kicking my ass so... here you go! i hope yall enjoy <3


	11. eleven

It starts again. Somehow the sadness, the not-caring-about-anything-at-all gives way to the upset again, and Donghyuck looks at himself in the mirror and sees it all again. It isn’t the strange sadness that had overcome him, that had made him feel useless and tired and gloomy, but the uncomfortable feeling of being in his own skin, of _looking like that_ , of having his soft biceps and tummy, of feeling like he’d put on weight a while ago and hadn’t bothered to take care of it.

It sucks. He’s still feverish, still snot-nosed and puffy-eyed, and Lucas has gone back to NCT U’s dorm, and Donghyuck doesn’t know what to do now that he’s alone again. Mark… Mark doesn’t count. He’s there in the dorm, but he might as well not exist, for how easily he’d let Donghyuck escape.

Donghyuck is so goddamn tired. He doesn’t have that sort of shameless persistence that’ll _let_ him beg to speak to Mark. He can’t… he can’t handle rejection like that endlessly. Donghyuck thrives on validation, and even though he’s famous, even with the countless fans he has, the validation he gets isn’t _right_. He doesn’t care what the fans have to say—or, well, that’s not exactly right—he can’t bring himself to believe what they say, maybe. He just wants someone he knows… someone he _respects_ to tell him that he’s doing well, that he’s so impressive.

He wants it all to end. Donghyuck doesn’t understand his constant mood swings, the way he sometimes feels like he’s okay—like his worries are nothing more than an afterthought—but how now most of the time he bounces between not caring about anything at all and caring too much about all the wrong things. He wants the world to stop, to give him a moment to _breathe_ , to gather his thoughts before he loses it for good.

Why does he feel so _sad?_ He’s NCT’s mood-maker, but how is he supposed to make others laugh when he can barely bring himself to smile? It’s a cycle. He’s sad, so he can’t do what he’s supposed to do, which makes him feel even more useless, and by extension, even sadder.

“Useless,” Donghyuck spits at his reflection. “Fucking _useless_.”

“Donghyuck?”

What.

It’s Mark, sounding strangely detached from behind the bathroom door, and Donghyuck briefly considers dying.

“What?” Donghyuck squeaks, and his voice very nearly breaks. He’s shaking like a leaf, hands gone icy cold.

There’s a pause. And then Mark says: “Open the door.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Donghyuck quips in response, already beginning to panic, because his eyes are red-rimmed, his nose runny and lips puffy from feverish tears. He wipes roughly at his face, but only aggravates the redness.

“I don’t care,” Mark drones, and _why_ can’t Donghyuck tell what he’s thinking? “Open the goddamn door, Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck inhales, shakily, has to bite back a hysterical sob rising in his chest. “Go away, hyung,” he says, and his voice wobbles almost imperceptibly. He prays that Mark hasn’t noticed. “I’m not sure if you can tell, but I’m not in the mood.”

“Donghyuck.”

This time it comes out stern. Like Mark actually means business—and it’s a tone of voice so rare it sends a chill down Donghyuck’s spine. He opens the door, eyes cast to the ground and head lowered. Shame. He’s so ashamed.

There’s silence, and Donghyuck _hates_ it. He looks up defiantly into Mark’s face, expecting something like frustration, like anger, but…

Instead he finds Mark, wide-eyed and surprised, mouth dropped open. Something flashes across his face, something that might be regret. Donghyuck draws back, wraps his arms around himself. He could’ve handled anger. He _can’t_ handle the pity in Mark’s eyes.

“What?” He snaps, defensive, and he _knows_ he’s curling in on himself, but he just can’t seem to stop pulling away. “You wanted me to open the door. I did. Now what?”

“Hyuck…” Mark breathes, helpless, and Donghyuck _hates_ seeing Mark looking at him like that—like Donghyuck’s a small wounded animal he has to take responsibility to for. “Oh, Hyuck,” and his voice comes out so _worried_ and warm; and Donghyuck hasn’t heard him sound like that in _weeks._

Almost reflexively, Donghyuck’s eyes fill with tears.

“Wait, Hyuck, no, why are you crying?” Mark panics, hands fluttering uselessly about himself and Donghyuck, like he doesn’t even know where to begin. “No, stop, this isn’t _fair_ ,” Mark stammers, before he’s shuffling forward hurriedly to wrap his arms around Donghyuck’s shoulders. Donghyuck buries his face into Mark’s neck, already sobbing. “Stop,” he babbles, “please, Hyuckie, please stop crying.”

“I would if I _could_ ,” Donghyuck wails wetly into Mark’s neck. He reaches up, fists his hands in the back of Mark’s shirt. It’s been so _long_ —Donghyuck doesn’t ever want to let go, now. He’s missed Mark so much, and now that he’s here, in his grasp, the ache of being shunned by him is all of a sudden that much sharper. Mark’s so warm, so solid in his grip.

“Donghyuck,” Mark whispers, uncertain and regretful, and brings a hand up to card through Donghyuck’s hair. There are no words.  

“Shut up,” says Donghyuck. “Shut up, shut up, _shut up_ ,” and he’s crying so hard he can barely breathe, and Mark’s there, grounding him, holding him so tight it hurts and Donghyuck wonders if Mark has the power to physically hold him together, to stop him from hypothetically falling apart. And then the _‘shut up’s_ melt into ‘ _I’m sorry’s_ and Donghyuck wishes that he were better, wishes not to be Lee Donghyuck but someone _capable_ , someone who doesn’t constantly feel like the world’s burdens are on their shoulders.

Mark’s silent for a long time, hand cupped around the back of Donghyuck’s head, pressing his face into his shoulder. He waits, patient and quietly regretful, for Donghyuck’s tears to slow and his hiccups to fade to unsteady breathing. “Hyuck,” he murmurs, later, into Donghyuck’s hair. “You still have a fever,” and Donghyuck closes his eyes and nods.

“Yeah,” he whispers.

~

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Asks Mark, later, when they’re tucked in Donghyuck’s bed hip-to-hip, shoulder-to-shoulder, watching reruns of One Piece. “Donghyuck, you shouldn’t keep things like that to yourself,” he sounds hurt, almost betrayed, and Donghyuck clenches his hands into fists.

“To be fair,” mumbles Donghyuck, “I told Yukhei.”

Mark shoots him a look. “Lee Donghyuck, you know what I mean.”

“Look,” Donghyuck sighs. “What do you want from me? For me to spill my guts? I’m sorry, I’ve been stressed. But can you at least just… try not to force it? Mark, you’re my best friend. But you’ve been _ignoring_ me for weeks. I’ve tried to talk to you, I really have. But you chose not to give me that opportunity. And I’m not blaming you—but you can’t expect me to want to tell you everything when you’ve barely given me the chance to apologize. And I’m past apologies now, Mark. I know what I did was shitty. I tried to say sorry. You didn’t let me. We’re past that.”

Mark spends a few moments just opening and closing his mouth helplessly. “Donghyuck…” All of a sudden, his face crumples. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I… I didn’t mean to—no, that’s not it. I… I’m sorry for ignoring you. It was wrong of me. After what you said to me… I wanted to hurt you.” To Donghyuck’s surprise, Mark’s looking a little glassy-eyed, cheeks flushed with something like shame.

“It’s okay,” says Donghyuck and shrugs. “I said dumb things.”

Mark stares at Donghyuck wordlessly, brows furrowed, before he launches forwards and wraps an arm around Donghyuck’s shoulders and _squeezes._ “We’re both kind of stupid, huh,” he says, and smiles.

“Can’t argue with that,” Donghyuck giggles a little wetly.

“But,” the smile slides off Mark’s face. “You can’t have been that upset just by our… fight, right? Was there something else?”

Donghyuck stares at him. There were so many things. “There was,” he admits, hesitantly. “But don’t worry. I feel better now that I’ve cried like a _loser_ in front of you.” The last part is sardonic, meant to make Mark laugh, but it only makes the older boy frown harder.

“What was it?”

Donghyuck pauses. He considers his options: he could tell Mark everything—but at what cost? It’s too embarrassing, and he’s not exactly ready to lay his soul bare. Can he trust Mark? With his wide eyes, pouting mouth, his face the very picture of candid concern. He has to tell him _something_.

“I… I’m confused,” Donghyuck admits tentatively, dragging out the words. “About… about myself.” He lets out a shaky breath. “I think…” his heart is slamming in his chest, and he’s so lightheaded with fear he just might pass out. “I might like boys?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long omg i thought i would have it out sooner but school is Kicking My Ass T^T   
> anyways!! i hope yall like this chapter! tysm for all the kudos/comments ur support means the world to me!!


	12. twelve

Mark’s staring at him with round eyes. He opens his mouth, then closes it. “…Oh,” he says, and it’s barely audible, just a rush of air coming out on an exhale. “Oh,” he says again. And then, almost imperceptibly, he draws back, away from Donghyuck. Donghyuck’s stomach drops.

“Mark,” Donghyuck says helplessly, and he hates how it sounds like he’s begging. “I’m still Donghyuck. Nothing’s changed.”

Silence. Mark looks away, and Donghyuck’s insides twist up. It hurts like a physical cramp.

“I-I know,” Mark stammers, but the tips of his ears and his neck is beginning to flush red. “I… wow.”

It’s embarrassing how Donghyuck’s chin wobbles, and how his voice cracks when he says, “Mark, I need you to be okay with it. I’m still Donghyuck. I’m still… I’m still your friend.”

“Best friend,” Mark corrects, almost absentmindedly, staring off into the distance somewhere. Deep inside, something unclenches. _Best_ friend, Donghyuck thinks to himself. _That’s right_. “Um,” it’s then that Mark glances at him again, and his eyes go even rounder when he sees the way Donghyuck’s tearing up. “Don’t cry, Hyuck-ah,” Mark says, and then takes Donghyuck’s right hand in his. He holds his hand delicately, like he’s afraid that Donghyuck will shatter.

“I’m not disgusting, right?” Donghyuck whispers, and he’s staring at slender lines of Mark’s wrists.

The response is borderline vehement: “ _No_!” Mark insists. Then, calmer, “no. You could never been disgusting to me, Hyuckie.”

“Then why…” Donghyuck’s throat tightens. “Why did you scoot away from me?”

Mark blinks at him owlishly. “I did?”

“You did,” Donghyuck confirms, and Mark looks down at where he’s holding Donghyuck’s hand in his.

“I didn’t mean to,” Mark says. “I was just surprised.”

“You must think I’m gross,” Donghyuck frowns. “Even unconsciously.”

“I _don’t_ ,” Mark insists, rather crossly. “Why are you so stubborn?”

“You _moved back_ ,” Donghyuck responds. “What am I supposed to think?”

Mark doesn’t say anything for a while, and scrutinizes the younger boy in front of him. In those few moments, he seems to come to a conclusion. Wordlessly, he lets go of Donghyuck’s hand. Donghyuck’s face falls, expression souring. But then, in the next breath, Mark is reaching forwards, tugging on both of Donghyuck’s arms with enough force to take advantage of his surprise to pull him close.

In an effort to keep himself balanced, Donghyuck has to brace himself on Mark’s chest, where beneath his fingertips, Mark’s heart flutters, hummingbird quick. Mark’s staring at him resolutely, mouth set firmly.

“I promise you,” Mark says, and if it weren’t for his pounding heartbeat, Donghyuck would’ve believed that Mark had never been calmer than at this very moment. But as it is, proof of his nervousness rest beneath Donghyuck’s very hands as Mark takes Donghyuck and pulls him even closer. Donghyuck flushes when he realizes that the only way to stay upright is to straddle the older boy.

When they’ve settled, Mark reaches up and holds Donghyuck’s face between his hands. He’s looking at him earnestly, brows furrowed, and mouth pressed into a line. “I promise you, Lee Donghyuck, that you will never, _ever_ , be disgusting to me. You are my best friend, and that isn’t going to change any time soon. I know I’ve been an awful friend for the past few weeks, maybe even months. But something like you _liking boys_ isn’t going to make me throw away our friendship. We’ve built this on our blood, sweat, and tears. Above all else, we’re a team. We’re part of something greater, right? Look at us, trainees since we were kids, and now we’re here, in NCT. And I’m sure as hell not going to let this get in the way of our job, or in the way of our friendship, okay? So, you don’t have to worry about my opinion of you changing, because it won’t.”

Donghyuck stares at Mark helplessly, cheeks burning hot beneath Mark’s palms, and he thinks, _I’m so in love,_ because he is, and then, _how did it turn out like this?_ And because he doesn’t know what to say, Donghyuck launches himself at Mark, flinging his arms around his shoulders. He buries his face into the older boy’s neck, and he can still feel Mark’s racing heart. It matches his own, beat for beat.

Even though he hasn’t told him everything, just telling him this is _enough_ —more than enough—for now. He squeezes his eyes shut, and there’s no need for words when Mark’s arms come around him to rub his back comfortingly. They both pretend that Donghyuck’s tears aren’t soaking through the collar of Mark’s shirt.

They sit like that for a long time. Donghyuck doesn’t know how long, exactly, but it’s long enough for his tears to dry and his heart to calm, and probably long enough for Mark’s legs to go numb.

“You’re still burning,” Mark whispers, when Donghyuck’s gone quiet and limp.

“Yeah,” Donghyuck murmurs, and Mark shifts him over and pushes him into the bed.

“You need rest,” Mark tells him. “I’ll go get some medicine from the pharmacy, or see if we might have something in the cabinets.”

“Yeah,” says Donghyuck, and then he’s asleep.

~

Mark closes the door behind him, as quietly as he possibly can. Just as he’s about to go into the kitchen to see if there’s anything helpful in the small medicine cabinet Taeyong likes to keep on hand, there’s a cough.

He whips around, only to find Jaehyun sitting on the couch, staring at him.

“Well,” said Jaehyun. “I came home early, wanting to take a nap in the room I _share with Donghyuck_ , and just as I opened the door, I saw something… interesting, to say the least. Want to explain?”

Mark ruminates for a moment. “No,” he decides. “Not really.”

Jaehyun’s eyebrows shoot up so high they almost disappear into his hairline.

“Anyways,” says Mark, and opens the cabinet. There’s nothing there. “Donghyuck’s running a fever. Do we have any meds?”

At that, Jaehyun sobers. “A fever? Did you take his temperature? Did you call the manager? Have you made sure that he’s had plenty of fluids?”

“Uh.”

“No on all counts, huh?” Jaehyun sighs, and shakes his head. Somehow, it feels like Mark’s failed. “Mark, you’re ridiculous. And yes, we have some meds, but run down to the store to buy some rice for me, I’ll make Hyuck a porridge for when he wakes up—feel free to buy yourself a popsicle or whatever, and make sure you don’t get caught by fans.”

“Got it!” He grabs his coat, and is out almost immediately. He can do this, at the very least. Even if it won’t erase all that he’s put Donghyuck through, it’s a start, and he’s willing to do whatever he can.

The door slams.

Jaehyun shakes his head again and sighs quietly.

“Whatever will we do with them?” He murmurs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took WAYYYY longer than anticipated to post, (and it's shorter than i wanted it to be too ugh) so i'm really sorry for the delay! i definitely underestimated how busy i would be LOL but first round of college apps are out of the way (legit submitted them an hour ago) so i figure i have maybe a week to breathe before things get messy again, so hopefully another chapter will be up soon! 
> 
> thank you guys so much for reading and leaving comments/kudos, y'all mean the world to me <3


	13. thirteen

Just as quickly as the storm had come and swept Donghyuck’s entire world upside down, it disappears, and in its wake leaves nothing but an anticlimactic silence. The day after Donghyuck’s (minor) meltdown, he weathers his fever in relative silence, and Mark is cheerfully at his side again, almost as if their weeks of estrangement had never occurred in the first place.

Donghyuck isn’t quite sure what to make of it.

Doesn’t know what to say when Mark hands him a freshly cracked open can of soda, isn’t sure how to respond when Mark pulls out his phone and shows him a new game that he found the other day.

It’s strange, how easily things fall back into place.

Mark’s still goofy, still awkward in the most precious way possible, and he doesn’t treat Donghyuck any differently. Still brightens when he sees him and goes, “Hyuck! You’re awake!” And pulls him into the kitchen to share a sweet treat that Taeyong had given him.

Honestly, Donghyuck’s a little wary.

The days pass like that, and Donghyuck’s still mostly reeling from what had happened, and he finds himself too busy to really care about anything. It’s days like this when he hardly has time to breathe, let alone think about all the ways he has to improve, that he lets himself fall into the pesky habit of watching Mark.

Mark is pretty in a sort of unconventional way, Donghyuck thinks. Boyish and lovely, with a bright smile made up of straight teeth and a small mouth. Eyes that crinkle at the corners when he laughs. The way he throws himself at the nearest person whenever he’s excited. Donghyuck watches and drinks him in, and he takes and takes and takes—revels in the small certitudes like the way he can brush against Mark’s shoulder during dance practice, poke at his sides when they’re playing around... drinks in Mark’s smile and his laughter and wishes that Mark knew how much it meant.

And maybe it’s because of this haze that Donghyuck’s somehow fallen into that he forgets. Forgets that Mark is nothing more than a friend, will never been anything more, when one night they’re watching anime and Mark’s phone rings.

“Who is it?” Donghyuck asks, carelessly, and reaches over Mark’s thighs to get at the popcorn.

Mark practically lights up when he sees who it is. “Koeun!”

All the breath leaves Donghyuck’s lungs in a _whoosh_ and he feels a little like he’s been punched. “ _Oh_ ,” he whispers, and Mark’s bringing the phone up to his ear.

“Koeun!” He chirps again, brighter, like the happiness he’d shown Donghyuck had only been 70% of what he’s capable of feeling.

Donghyuck can’t hear a word she’s saying, only able to make out the muffled sweet voice of a pretty, pretty girl.

“No, I’m not busy,” Mark says smilingly. “Just watching anime with Hyuckie.” He pauses. “Leave? Right now? Uh…” He glances at Donghyuck, and even though he doesn’t say a word Donghyuck understands the unspoken question.

 _Go ahead_ , he mouths, and the forces himself to smile to cushion the blow.

Mark beams. “Yeah, sure, I’ll be down in a few!”

When he hangs up, he jumps to his feet, and shoots Donghyuck a look that could hardly be classed as apologetic. “Sorry for bailing, dude—but Koeun wanted to,”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Donghyuck says and rolls his eyes through a smile that doesn’t feel right, “go flirt with your girlfriend, nerd,” and Mark grins.

“You’re the best, Hyuck!” He shouts, already halfway out the door.

The door slams.

“Yeah,” Donghyuck murmurs, and gathers his knees to his chest. “The best.”

And it hurts—it really does. What sort of awful joke is it that he’d fallen in love with a boy—his bandmate, no less—who already had a girlfriend? What right does Donghyuck has to love someone else like this when he hardly likes himself at all? Donghyuck is a mess of feelings and whirling thoughts and he thinks, _it must be nice to be simpleminded like Mark_ , and then feels awful because Mark doesn’t deserve any of this, doesn’t deserve any of Donghyuck’s unwanted feelings.

He frowns, and sighs.

He’s had enough of feeling sad.

~

“C’mon man,” says Yukhei, from where they’re panting on the floor of the practice room. “Don’t sweat it.”

“What do you _mean_ ,” Donghyuck demands, and pushes himself up so that he’s sitting upright. “That is literally the worst advice anyone has ever given me.”

Yukhei shrugs. “I mean, it’s not like you can _tell_ Mark how you feel,” and Donghyuck winces. He knows Yukhei’s right, though, and doesn’t know if that’s better or worse.

“Yeah,” he sighs instead, and shuffles over to lean his head on Yukhei’s shoulder. “This _sucks_ ,” he complains. “I wish I liked girls. They must be nice. All soft ‘n all.”

Beneath him, Yukhei’s shoulders shake with laughter. “I guess you could say that,” he says. “But hey, don’t worry about it too much. Mark’s missing out, you know? You’re a cool dude.”

“Thanks,” Donghyuck says drily. “I really believe that.”

“No, seriously! It’s true.” Yukhei tells him. “You’re super cool. Mark doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

Donghyuck laughs. “You’re right. Mark doesn’t _deserve_ me.”

“Exactly,” Yukhei nods, and then there’s a moment of silence. They exchange looks. Yukhei’s lips twitch, and as if a flip’s been switched, they dissolve into helpless giggles. “Also, I mean, you’re kind of right. I’m not an advice-giving person, y’know? Why didn’t you ask Jeno or like, Jaemin? Renjun? Taeyong? Ten? Anyone else.”

“You’re the only one that knows,” Donghyuck admits. “About me liking Mark, I mean. And I’d prefer that it stay that way, y’know?” He pauses. “No real reason to worry anyone else or risk everything going sour just because of some stupid feelings I couldn’t keep in check.”

“Not stupid,” Yukhei frowns. “You know that.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Donghyuck sighs. “Not stupid.”

It’s stupid.

~

Donghyuck only gets around to asking Mark about his date with Koeun two days later, when they’re in Mark’s room and playing a half-hearted game of Minecraft on Mark’s laptop.

“Hey,” Donghyuck says, and uses a pickaxe to smash through some dirt, “I forgot to ask, but how’d it go with Koeun?”

Mark goes a little bit stiff. “Why?”

“Dunno,” Donghyuck shrugs. “Was curious. What’d you guys do the other day? You know,” he can’t resist the jab, “when you ditched me to hang out with her?”

Quietly, Mark leans back, and looks down at his lap. His hands are curled into his pants, and his mouth is twisted and a little ugly, like he’s about to cry. “Broke up,” he says tersely. “She said… said I was too busy. Too busy being an idol. And that she was too busy. Too busy working hard, and that… and that she hated the way that she’s still a trainee but I’m already…” he stops. Swallows. “Successful. She didn’t like feeling like she was falling behind,”

And in the moment Donghyuck _feels_ for Koeun, sympathizes with her in a way that he never thought he would. He knows that feeling well. Understands how much it feels like he’s just looking at Mark’s back as the older boy gets further and further away from him. He’ll be left in the dust eventually, he knows, but maybe for Koeun that ‘ _eventually’_ was ‘ _now’_ and she’d chosen to let go before it could all crumble. A house of cards, doomed to fall.

“She didn’t want to distract me. Didn’t want me to distract her. So, she broke it off.” Mark’s hands are trembling. “She… She cried, Hyuck. She _cried_.”

And even though Mark isn’t crying Donghyuck leans in close and wraps his arms around Mark, and hopes that maybe this will make it hurt a little less.

“I’m sorry, hyung,” he says earnestly. “I’m sorry the timing wasn’t right. I’m sorry it hurts,” and Mark lets out a little cry, and the tears begin to fall.

“This is silly,” Mark says, and Donghyuck is reminded, painfully, of himself. “We weren’t even together for a long time. We hardly had time to do anything at all. But why…” Mark gasps through the tears, shoulders shaking so, so hard. “Why does it hurt?”

Why does it hurt, indeed?

Donghyuck sighs, and rubs Mark’s back. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “It’ll get better with time.”

“I know,” Mark mumbles. “I wish I never asked her out in the first place.”

And so, like that, Mark’s first romance ends, as abruptly as it had started, unassuming and without much fanfare, marked only by the tears he’d left on Donghyuck’s shoulder. And, as with everything else in this fast-paced world, it fades into oblivion and is left but a tear-stained memory in the minds of three kids who can’t afford to slow down and breathe. It ends, as all things must.

(Donghyuck wishes he could solve every single one of Mark’s problems with a snap of his fingers.

Donghyuck wishes he could _breathe_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp, got accepted into /a/ college, so that's not bad. we'll see how the next round of applications goes, see if i can do any better. anyways, here's the chapter! it's been so long since the last one i'm starting to forget what the fic's even about LOL
> 
> hope you guys enjoyed--comments/kudos mean the world to me!


	14. fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [WARNING] there's like a not-very-explicit mention of masturbation in this chapter (it's like a paragraph or two), but i'd just like to let you guys know. it's not really meant to be read sexually, but viewed as just an exploration about how it's like being young and having a crush and not knowing how to deal with it. really intense--sometimes physical, sometimes emotional--a work in progress sort of experimental sort of thing!! and, just to note, there won't be any real sexual encounters between any of the charas--this isn't that kind of fic.

Something imperceptible shifts, after that. Maybe it’s because Mark’s still raw from his freshly broken heart. Maybe it’s because Donghyuck’s just paranoid. But Mark is withdrawn—not dismissive, but reserved—and Donghyuck finds that now it’s difficult to be the one who’s always heckling the older boy.

He doesn’t know what to do.

There’s so much bubbling up inside of him, sometimes Donghyuck doesn’t know how he even finds the time to _care_ —but he lies awake at night and thought after thought worry after worry washes over him in jumbled pieces and he finds himself jumping from topics like NCT to Mark, then to hating himself, to being hungry and cranky, then to being jealous of Koeun to wondering if he’s genuinely stupid, to thinking about ways to improve himself, then to thinking is it even all worth it?

Donghyuck finds himself tucking himself under the covers with his phone brightness turned down low so he won’t wake Jaehyun. He reads forums online—about self-help and catharsis and about how keeping things like journals or video diaries are liberating.

He sits upright. Does he own notebook paper? Yes, he does. Is it too risky to write in a journal that he can leave around the dorm so that other members might one day find and read? Just the thought of having something like that makes his heart pound. But. He has his _phone_. That’s almost totally private—given that no one steals it or hacks it, of course, which is always a risk that an idol has to take.

It’s a start, though, and Donghyuck thinks it isn’t even that bad of an idea.

He pulls open the Notes app, and stares at the yellow of the artificial page. Where should he even _start_?

He types: _Dear Diary_. Then he backspaces immediately because _Christ_ that sounded stupid. He takes a deep, steadying breath. This will be good, he tries to tell himself. This will help him cope.

So he starts again:

_I’m writing this because I want to get things off my chest._

Yes. that’s a good start, he thinks, a little satisfied, and it’s almost as if a switch has been flipped—the words come pouring out of in a torrential flow, like this was the bottleneck that he’d just snapped. His fingers fly across the keyboard.

_I know that nobody’s ever going to read this but me, and that I probably won’t ever show this to anyone else. That’s fine. Just knowing that this is out there, that I’ve written this, figuratively put pen on paper… it’s a little cathartic. Or I hope it will be. Maybe I’ll continue this. Maybe I won’t. But now that I’m here today with it in front of me I guess I’ll start._

_I think I read somewhere that it’s good sometimes to know how to compartmentalize, so I think I’m going to do that now. Should I rank my worries from most pressing to least? That sounds like a good idea except I don’t know what exactly worries me the most. It feels like_ everything _worries me, and I’m exhausted._

_You know, I’m an idol. I’m a teenager and I have a job and I don’t go to school anymore. It seems like there’s so much work to do all the time and it’s so fucking draining but then I realize: is this what passion is? I don’t even know anymore. I can’t tell if I hate being an idol or if I’m losing motivation or what it is but it’s just that everything feels meaningless and sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be normal again. Sometimes it feels like I was just this normal kid with no worries and then all of a sudden I woke up hating everything about myself and drowning in hurt. Even writing this makes me feel stupid, and melodramatic, like all the other members say I am._

_Here’s the thing: I don’t want to do anything. I sit and wait for things to just magically be okay, and when nothing happens, and I screw up, I wallow in self-pity. But I can’t bring myself to do anything about it. I’m stressed, and I’m so tired. I feel_ FAT _. I look at myself in the mirror and all I can think of is how disgusting I look and yeah sometimes I look, and I think I look good at that moment and I feel like preening but then that goes away and I’m gross all over again._

 _What does that even_ mean _? What’s wrong with me?_

 _And I’m so fucking guilty for feeling like this. I’m so unmotivated. I’m so selfish. I spend so long thinking about all the ways I’m a failure—just like now, I guess, writing this stupid diary no one’s gonna read—that I lose sight of my priorities (like not being a burden to NCT) and begin to fall behind. It’s like taking one step forward and then taking two more back. Like standing in the ocean at high tide and getting smacked in the face with a wave and going under, then managing to fight your way back up to_ breathe _except there’s another wave coming and it’s TWICE as big and you’re slammed back to the ground before you even have time to curse your luck._

_I hate this. What’s the use of all this stress? I’ll continue with NCT, live my insignificant life. Maybe in six months this period of time will mean nothing to me. I can’t imagine feeling anything but disappointment when I look back at myself now. What did you spend so long agonizing for? Why do I exist, if I don’t have the motivation to make something of myself? Where did my love for performing go?_

_And then. There’s Mark. Oh god, that idiot. I must be a horrible person if I’m happy that he and Koeun broke up. That’s awful of me but I can’t help it I like him, and I don’t want to have to let go of him just yet._

_We were fighting and then we made up—which was such a relief, it’s ridiculous how big of an effect he has on me—and I told him I liked boys which isn’t even the_ half _of it, but it still scared me shitless anyway but then he was amazing about it because_ of course he was. _Then when he was holding my face and telling me that he would never think differently of me I think I loved him so hard at that moment that it actually hurt._

_I love him. I love him I love him I love him I love him_

Donghyuck doesn’t even notice he’s trembling until realizes that the screen’s gotten too blurry to see and he’s beyond overwhelmed, hands shaking so hard he couldn’t type even if he tried. Jesus. _Jesus_ what the hell is the matter with him he’s so overcome he can hardly breathe. Okay. Okay this is more intense than he’d imagined it would be. He exits out of the app and locks his phone. The screen goes dark and Donghyuck squeezes his eyes shut, focusing just on calming his breathing. It’s not a panic attack but his heart is fluttering in his chest and there’s this strange mixture of fear and relief and confusion and panic.

He’s starting to wonder if, ironically, he’s pushing _all_ his concerns aside and focusing on what appears to be the least important one—which happens to be his ridiculous crush on Mark. It’s definitely a coping mechanism, he thinks. A pretty awful one, for sure. Of course, it’s not so clean-cut like that. He isn’t obsessive, it’s just… liking Mark—even in a largely unrequited way—is a happier place for him than practicing, than looking into a mirror and feeling awful, than not being able to sleep at night.

He sits up gingerly and pushes the blankets aside. He swings his legs over the edge of the bed, blindly feeling for Jaehyun’s soft slippers that he likes to steal, and gets to his feet. Making sure to be quiet enough as not to disturb Jaehyun, he slinks out of their room and heads towards the living room. Usually the other members of NCT are pretty good about sleep—or, at the very least, getting to their room at a reasonable time—but tonight he isn’t alone.

Sitting on the couch and watching the T.V. on mute are Johnny and Mark. Donghyuck glances at the clock behind the T.V.—it’s nearing 3 a.m. and for some reason Johnny is fully dressed in jeans and a t-shirt even though he’s lounging comfortably, all of him stretched out over the couch and Mark huddled on the ground, knees pulled up to his chest.

They haven’t noticed Donghyuck, and Donghyuck can’t help but pause and look at the way Johnny’s fingers trail over Mark’s hair and neck and shoulder—it’s a move designed for comfort and Donghyuck frowns and selfishly wishes that it had been him who had gotten to Mark first.

He doesn’t want to be the one who needs comforting anymore. He wants to set that aside and be someone strong, who can confidently tell Mark that the hurt is temporary and _who needs dumb girlfriends anyway, huh, when you have a cool friend like me,_ without getting sucked into a whirlpool of his own anxieties.

But then he thinks that even when he was comforting Mark he never really truly cared about Mark in that moment, and now he’s not even sure if he’s capable of loving selflessly. It was always about Mark in conjunction to himself—how he liked that Koeun and Mark broke up, and how he felt guilty for liking that they broke up, and how he selfishly craved Mark needing him in the aftermath of something sad, and how he wanted Mark to be happy because it made _him_ happy, and how he wanted Mark to tell him that he was _good_ and that he deserved to be adored, and how he wanted Mark to love him back.

It’s a festering need, like an open wound, that pulses and throbs in tandem to his heart, which is faulty. _Love isn’t supposed be selfish,_ Donghyuck thinks, _right_? And in all the books and movies and love stories that last for the ages it doesn’t seem to be. Does Donghyuck love Mark? He doesn’t even know. He’s just a kid and so is Mark and maybe this will all go away in time but for now it seems like a mountain for him to climb except Donghyuck’s never climbed mountains only hills, and just thinking about where to go from here makes his chest tight with panic.

Donghyuck bites his lip and stares at the back of Mark’s head, and Johnny’s profile. Johnny’s face is open and relaxed, eyes half-lidded and looking like he’s about to fall asleep. Mark’s shoulders are hunched, and his head is bowed, but his neck is a long stretch of pale skin and the ridges of his spine and Donghyuck is struck with a sudden desire to _bite_ —to mark up the pale expanse with his teeth, to have the taste of Mark’s skin on his tongue.

It’s a desire that’s all encompassing for but a moment, only a second of heat unfurling in Donghyuck’s belly before it passes, and he’s left sitting in embers with a flushed sort of embarrassment that comes before guilt and self-loathing.

He can’t bring himself to interrupt the two, because his presence will only disrupt the quiet, delicate balance established between Mark and Johnny, their bodies and faces lit with the faint blue glow of the screen. He turns on his heel, and very carefully returns to his and Jaehyun’s room.

Jaehyun is asleep, not quite snoring but breathing deeply, and Donghyuck crawls back into bed and rolls over to stare at the ceiling. Now, somehow a little too keyed up to think about his mild freak-out over his digital diary, Donghyuck thinks about Johnny and Mark in the living room. He closes his eyes and behind his lids he sees Mark, sees the easy arrangement of his limbs, head bowed forward and hair curling at the nape of his neck. His _neck_ , long and slender and pale, and the curve of his elbow and his long knobby fingers and the heat returns, settling in his gut and Donghyuck squeezes his eyes shut and feels his breathing go all shallow and wonky.

Trembling, he pushes his right hand past the waistband of his underwear and curls his fingers around himself, arching into the touch with a soundless cry. And his eyes are still closed and all he sees is Mark and there’s heat and slick pleasure and it’s a heady, wonderful feeling. Like lightning on his skin and static in his veins. He’s quiet—so quiet—and he bites down on his left hand when everything culminates and bursts, Mark disappearing behind his eyelids in a flash of white.

He comes back to himself in stages, first aware of his tremulous breathing and then the sweat beading at his hairline and then the uncomfortable stickiness of his hand. The white-out pleasure has faded into something softer, and he’s left lying boneless and feeling distinctly horrified because now this cements it all—everything has changed. He’s used Mark for _what_ —for jack-off fodder?

Flushing all the way down his chest Donghyuck hastily wipes his hand on his t-shirt which he then discards in the laundry basket and pulls on another. God, he feels sick. And it’s not like this is his first time jacking off or anything—he isn’t _twelve_ —but this is the first time it’s been about _Mark_ and he kind of maybe wants to die.

He rolls back onto his back and stares blankly at the ceiling again and thinks, very deliberately, of crawling into a hole to wither away in humiliation. Of course, it’s not like this is somehow going to get out to the group—Jaehyun is still asleep—but it’s a moment that he’s going to have to live with For the Rest of His Life apparently, and now how on earth is he supposed to ever look Mark in the eye again? God.

Having a crush sucked.

It sucked because it simultaneously felt like adult desire rolled up into the mushy infatuation of a middle-schooler, and Donghyuck didn’t know whether to feel stupid or frustrated or sad or anything like that. He lets out a frustrated exhale and then resolutely turns onto his side, pulling the blankets up and over his head. He falls asleep out of sheer obstinacy.

~

The next morning their schedule is supposed to be lighter but instead it’s exhausting. _We Go Up_ is all set to drop—except _Regular_ is also set for the month after, so Donghyuck and Mark have dance practice for the _We Go Up_ comeback and final touches for _Regular_ ’s MV, and it’s beyond hectic right from the get-go, when Donghyuck wakes up to Mark leaning over to shake him awake, with a finger to his lips because Jaehyun’s still sleeping. 

“Dance practice,” Mark whispers to Donghyuck, who is already beginning to go red once he realizes that it’s _Mark_ and holy shit he just got off to Mark like four hours ago. “Get ready we’ll leave in half an hour.” Donghyuck only blinks at him, trying very, very hard not blush too visibly. Something’s changed, all right.

Mark narrows his eyes at him. “Hyuck, you alright? You look kind of flushed.”

At that, Donghyuck lets out a rather strangled sound. “I’m _fine_ ,” he manages to choke out, before flinging the blankets off and onto Mark and making a mad dash for the bathroom before the older boy even has time to react.

Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god why is he panicking _now_ of all times? It’s not like his feelings are new. _But getting off on him is_ , his brain helpfully supplies, and Donghyuck briefly considers slamming his head into the wall. Instead, he turns the water on and takes a cold shower.

“Get a hold of yourself,” he tells himself vehemently. “Nothing has to change. Nothing _has_ changed. Mark’s still moping over Koeun so get over yourself.”

God, he hates it when he’s reasonable. Of course he’s good at giving advice except it’s one thing to actually _follow_ said advice. Most people have common sense but it’s different when it’s about themselves—there doesn’t exist that separation between logic and emotion and Donghyuck’s definitely having a hard time not blushing whenever he looks at Mark because all he can think about is biting him and then maybe kissing him hard, on the mouth. It’s a problem.

By the time his shower ends, Donghyuck is much more awake and feeling a lot less out of control. Mark’s sitting in the kitchen waiting for him dressed in a big hoodie and sweats, and he looks up at Donghyuck with big, somewhat concerned eyes.

“Dude, what was _that_?” He asks emphatically, and hands Donghyuck a granola bar.

“What was what?” Donghyuck responds innocently, unwrapping the granola bar and taking a little nibble. It’s too sweet. It’s a regular granola bar except it’s too sweet and he can’t even stomach the thought of having to finish all of it. Instead he makes at nibbling at it but knows that as soon as Mark’s back is turned that its going right into the garbage.

“You were all weird just now,” Mark says, and then points at Donghyuck’s shoulder. “Your hair’s dripping onto your shirt.”

“Oh, thanks,” Donghyuck says absently and grabs a clean kitchen towel to run it through his hair.

“You aren’t getting sick again, are you? Feverish? Sore throat?” Mark blinks at him with an expression so earnest that Donghyuck can practically feel his blood sugar rising.

He rolls his eyes. “ _No_ , Mom, I’m not getting sick. I was just tired. Jeez, what’s with the third degree today?”

Mark frowns, and Donghyuck all of a sudden feels like he’s said something wrong. “Nothing,” Mark mumbles. “Just worried about you…” he trails off, and oh dear god, there it is, there’s that kicked puppy look.

Donghyuck sighs. “ _Dummy_ ,” he says, not unkindly, and Mark’s head snaps up at stare at him, looking adorably offended. “Thank you for caring, but I’m _fine_ , see? You can even feel my temperature.” He takes a hold of Mark’s hand and places it on his forehead. He doesn’t have a fever, and feeling this, Mark seems visibly assuaged. In a moment of selfish bravery Donghyuck takes much too long to let go of Mark’s hand. It’s a moment that feels private, and when they do separate Mark doesn’t seem to have noticed, except Donghyuck feels warm and full in the best way possible.

“Let’s go to practice,” Donghyuck says, and Mark nods.

It’s nice, really, getting to walk with Mark in the early morning cold, when the streets are still quiet, and the sky is pale blue.

“I miss you,” Mark says, suddenly.

Donghyuck freezes. He opens his mouth. Pauses. Opens it again, and can only manage a confused “Huh?”

Mark’s cheeks are pink, and so are his ears. “I dunno,” he mumbles. “I feel like we’ve spent the past few months kind of fighting, kind of not—and I’ll take the blame for that, even—and then there was my whole thing with…” his throat bobs as he swallows, “Koeun. And I feel like we haven’t had the chance to hang out for real. Not you and me. Not us with the Dreamies. I… I don’t want us to grow apart, Hyuck,” and he laughs self-deprecatingly like he can’t believe what he’s saying.

And it’s true, to some extent.

When they’d first met all those years ago Donghyuck can admit that he was probably nothing more than a thorn in Mark’s side—but time has passed, and they’ve matured, and Donghyuck finds that Mark is right: he doesn’t want to lose his best friend, simply because they were too stupid to work things out.

“Well,” Donghyuck says, slowly, delicately. “If it’s hanging out with me that you’ve missed, then… I suppose we can settle on some sort of arrangement,” he smiles impishly at Mark and Mark beams back, brilliant and boyish and effortlessly stunning. Donghyuck’s chest feels tight and he’s almost breathless, like he’s breathing helium and about to float up into the vast spread of the sky.

He swallows tightly, pushes past his infatuation. “I always knew you were a sap,” he manages to tease, and Mark elbows him in the side.

“Shut up,” grumbles Mark without heat, and Donghyuck laughs and throws his head back. He holds back on swinging an arm over Mark’s shoulder because this is a good moment and he doesn’t want to risk it going sour by getting shrugged off.

They fall into a companionable silence, and Donghyuck lets out a little sigh and smiles up at the sky, vague and unusually pleased. There’s a lightness in him that he hasn’t felt in months—the tight grip of _fear_ , he realizes, that Mark really was moving on and ready to leave him behind like everything else that wasn’t good enough to keep up, has loosened. Knowing that Mark still wants to be around him, _misses_ him, in fact, is so incredibly validating. Selfish, selfish—Donghyuck only knows how to love selfishly—can’t help the relief, the rush of giddiness.

Donghyuck hasn’t felt wanted in so long. Whether or not he’s deserving is a whole other question entirely but for now, knowing this is enough. The relief is wondrous, like an oasis in the desert, and he feels his eyes getting a little glassy, even as he smiles up into the blueness of the sky. Mark is silent beside him. If he notices the peculiar shine in Donghyuck’s eyes, he doesn’t show it.

Maybe it’s the early-morning chill. Maybe it’s because it feels like they’re the last two people on earth. Maybe it’s just that this is a better day. But somehow, Donghyuck’s problems seem muted. Not far away, not forcefully squashed, but almost like an afterthought (there are more important things) and he’ll take what he can get in terms of the smaller victories.

 _Some days are better than others_ , Donghyuck thinks. This is one of those days.

He smiles— _helpless, happy_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a while!! no excuses except i definitely dropped the ball on this one lol but here's a slightly longer chapter~ 
> 
> a note on all of hyuck's musings and insecurities: a lot of these i draw inspiration from my own experiences so i can't promise that they're universal or anything like that, but i tried my best to portray a sort of flip-flop between being okay one moment and not the next--just this sort of seesaw of emotions :')


	15. fifteen

The scale appears in their dorm’s bathroom out of nowhere. Well, logically speaking, either one of the managers bought it to help them keep track of themselves during comeback season (and its _always_ comeback season), or one of the members did. But how it got there doesn’t matter—all that matters is that it’s _there_ and Donghyuck feels sick just looking at it.

It’s early, and on a rare day off, which means that everyone is still asleep while Donghyuck is already well on the way to having a complete and utter meltdown at seven in the morning, like an absolute loser. He knows, logically speaking, that whatever number he sees on the scale will not upset him as much as he feels like it will. He knows he’s a normal, healthy weight. He _knows_ this, except that standing in front of the damn scale in just his underwear feels like the goddamn last judgment, like he’s being tried for a crime he never committed.

He’s absolutely ridiculous. The numbers are meaningless, because it isn’t the numbers that’s upsetting him but the way he _feels_ —the way he looks whenever he stares at himself in the mirror for so long it doesn’t even look like him anymore. Sure, knowing that the numbers might be going down will undoubtedly satisfy him in some twisted sort of way, but when he looks at himself all he sees is that bit off softness that juts out over the band of his underwear, the way his torso has no definition at all and how disproportionate everything feels.

Before anything has even happened, he feels endlessly defeated. Peel back all his layers and beneath it all he’s _still_ fat. On the inside, he’s this pathetic, curled up ball of insecurity and a round face and pouting mouth. It’s stewing in him, this ugly festering wound. Who can he talk to? He’s brothers with so many boys, yet of them all he can’t imagine any one of them feeling this way at all.

He takes a slow, juddering breath. The scale does not _mean_ anything, he tells himself. He doesn’t have to get on it. It’s okay if he just takes his shower and leaves. If he just goes about his day. If he doesn’t think of numbers, doesn’t think of all the ways that he is failing. Everything will be okay. And he knows, logically, that everything _is_ okay, but apparently his animal hindbrain does not agree. It feels like everything is falling apart.

He’s been so distracted, recently. With Mark, with the comeback, with _living his life_. But here he is, because his brain is somehow more than capable of flying through dozens of worries and concerns at the same time, and is also constantly coming up with ways to torture Donghyuck.

It’s laughable, really.

He squeezes his eyes shut and steps into the shower. There’s something to be said about this bathroom, which has become the home to the majority of Donghyuck’s self-induced crises. He hasn’t forced himself to throw up in a long time, and truth be told, he doesn’t want to do it again. There’s no real desire to torture himself in that way, and he hates the feeling of being ill. And sometimes he _wishes_ he could have the self-control to just stop eating entirely, but he doesn’t, and he knows that’s unhealthy but that doesn’t stop him from wanting things he shouldn’t.

He wants to look in the mirror and like what he sees. He wants to be proud of his achievements without feeling _guilty_ afterwards. He wants to hold a boy’s hand, kiss a boy on the mouth. He wants to kiss _Mark_ on the mouth. He wants, he wants, he _wants_. He can’t have.

When he turns the water off and wraps himself in a towel, Donghyuck is inexplicably struck with the need to wrap himself in something big and warm. He scurries to his and Jaehyun’s room—steals one of the older boy’s hoodies, and a matching pair of sweatpants. Some vicious, vindictive part of himself is endlessly pleased when he finds that he has to pull the drawstrings of the pants taut for it to stay up on his hips.

When he reemerges into the living room, he finds that Mark is somehow awake and in the kitchen, groggily making himself a bowl of cereal. Mark blinks up at him, and then his face splits into a sunny smile. Donghyuck’s heart skips in his chest— _pitter-patter—_ the sound of betrayal. His cheeks flush despite himself.

“Hyuck!” Says Mark, oh-so-warmly. Donghyuck curls up on himself without meaning to, huddling deeper into Jaehyun’s hoodie. It hurts. He wants to kiss Mark. He wants to stop feeling like this. He wants to stop feeling entirely.

“Mark,” he responds, a little hesitant. Even after they’ve made up, he still feels a bit like he has to walk on eggshells around Mark. Maybe something crucial has changed. Maybe their friendship will never be the same again. The thought of not being Mark’s best friend anymore hurts more than Donghyuck could have ever expected, which is surprising. But then again, after a big fight like theirs, an awkward period is probably expected. Although Mark sure doesn’t seem to be feeling awkward at all.

“Come here,” Mark says, and waves his hand excitedly. “I have a funny video to show you!”

And god, he sounds so eager, so _lovely_ , that it takes all of Donghyuck’s willpower and _more_ , to hold back a lovestruck smile. “Is it funny or is it _dumb_ ,” teases Donghyuck, and makes his way to his best friend, who’s practically vibrating in place like a big dumb puppy.

“Same difference,” Mark replies dismissively, but he’s grinning all the same. “Let’s sit on the couch then, it’s kinda long.”

Donghyuck hums in acquiescence, and obediently follows the older boy. Mark lets him sit down first, going to find a quilt, and Donghyuck damn near jumps out of his skin when Mark flings himself onto the couch, squeezing himself between Donghyuck and the armrest.

“Christ, why’re you all bundled up—it’s not even cold in here,” Mark points out, even as he arranges the quilt over their legs. Donghyuck shrugs.

“Felt like…” how is he supposed to explain that he woke up with nerves so fried that all he wanted to do was crawl into a pile of fabric and never come out? “I… soft. Dunno. Wanted to be soft.” He sounds like an absolute _idiot_. Donghyuck’s cheeks flush red with embarrassment.

“Certainly look like it,” Mark says, and there’s something in his expression—this fond little half-smile that has Donghyuck’s palms suddenly sweaty and his heart racing in his throat. Donghyuck can only stare at him, wide-eyed and speechless. But Mark is already turning away, facing his laptop on typing something into the browser search bar. Donghyuck bites back a smile and brings his knees up. This is okay. They’ll be okay. As soon as he gets over whatever it is that’s making him go all wonky… they’ll be okay.

“Hey,” Donghyuck mentions, a while later, when they’re on what must be the fifth or six video. “I’m… I think I might go out today,” he says carefully. “See if… Yukhei’s free to hang out. Or, the other members of Dream.”

Mark pauses the video, and looks up with a frown. “Lucas?”

“Or the other members of Dream,” Donghyuck hedges, but Mark’s still frowning.

“Why Lucas?”

Donghyuck frowns back at him. “Why _not_ Yukhei? Yukhei’s a cool guy—I dunno what to tell you, man.” 

Mark purses his lips, and there’s this strange expression on his face and Donghyuck doesn’t quite know what to make of it. “Since when did Lucas and you get so close, anyways?”

“Jeez, mom, what’s with the third degree?” Donghyuck rolls his eyes. It’s not like he can say that him and Yukhei bonded over his ridiculous crush on Mark.

Still frowning in a way that makes Donghyuck’s stomach hurt, Mark looks down, and then away. “Sorry. I just. Dunno. It’s unexpected, s’all.” He won’t meet Donghyuck’s stare, and every word comes out in a mumble as he picks away at the fraying edges of the blanket. “You’re right. Lucas is really cool.”

“I mean,” says Donghyuck hesitantly. “You’re definitely invited, if you want. And it’s not like I know for sure that him or the Dreamies are free—” but it doesn’t matter what he’s saying anymore because Mark’s completely lit up, smiling at Donghyuck like he’s… like he’s the _sun_ , or something sappy like that.

“Really?” Mark says, beaming. “You’d let me tag along with you and Lucas?”

Donghyuck scoffs. “Well, it’s not tagging along if we’re all hanging out, are we? It’s not like it’s a date or anything,” he cuts himself off, and can instantly feel his face beginning to burn. _It’s not a date or anything_ —why would he even _say_ that? Jesus Christ Donghyuck’s the biggest idiot on the planet—but Mark hasn’t noticed, or doesn’t want to notice, because he’s still smiling all bright and happy like everything’s totally fine and dandy.

Still helplessly flustered, Donghyuck pulls his phone out of his pocket, and decides to text the NCT DREAM group chat, and then Yukhei.

**GO DREAM**

**cutie hyuck:** _@all_ wanna hang out w/ me, mark, and maybe yukhei today

 **cutie hyuck** : like maybe go shopping or chill or wtv

 **cutie hyuck:** meet at That One Paris Baguette™ at 11:00 ish?

 **jenojaem:** sounds good to me :)))

 **nana:** we’ll be there!!

 **nana** : dw will also bring injunnie he can’t run from me and jeno

 **jenojaem** : ^^ that is correct

 **cutie hyuck:** _@lele @jisungie_ children are you coming

 **lele** : yes!!

 **lele:** jisung says yes too

 **jisungie:** ;-)

Mark’s smiling down at his phone a little goofily as he reads along, and Donghyuck can’t help but bite back his own smile, even as he switches chat rooms to text Yukhei.

**WONG**

**cutie hyuck** : hey yukhei do you wanna hang out with me and the Dreamies today?

 **cutie hyuck** : we were thinking about meeting up at the Paris Baguette down the street from the dorms

 **cutie hyuck** : at like. 11:00

 **lucas** : uh is that even a question

 **lucas** : asking me to hang out with DREAM???

 **lucas** : i can’t believe it’s finally happening

 **lucas** : my heart is BOOMBOOM yknow

 **cutie hyuck** : is that a yes?

 **lucas:** very yes

 **lucas:** I mean

 **lucas:** yes :D

Pocketing his phone, Donghyuck turns over to look at Mark. “Do you have any ideas for what we should do?”

Mark shrugs. “Lunch and a movie? Go to the arcade? Hongdae? Dunno.” He seems to consider something for a moment. “Why don’t you ask Lucas?”

Donghyuck just gapes at him. “Are you okay?”

“What?” Says Mark, a little defensively.

“I…” Donghyuck wants to ask: _why do you keep bringing up Yukhei for no reason at all_ , but can’t seem to find the words, so he just shakes his head. “Never mind.” He glances down at himself. “Maybe I should change?”

He probably should. He’s practically drowning in Jaehyun’s clothes, and the older boy probably wouldn’t appreciate it if he wore everything out and accidentally spilled anything on them. He sighs—it’s too bad. He likes the way Jaehyun’s clothes smell, and he doesn’t really want to put any real effort into dressing himself.

Instead, he sidles up to Mark. “ _Mark_ ,” he whines, dragging out the sound so that it’s two syllables instead of one. “I don’t know what to _wear_ ,” and he wraps his arms around Mark’s and shakes him a little. Mark laughingly pushes at him, but not hard enough to dislodge a fairly determined Donghyuck.

“Anything,” Mark tells him. “You’ll look fine in anything.”

Donghyuck pouts, playing up the whining: “But I don’t want to look just _fine_ , I want to look handsome.”

Mark rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “Shut up, Hyuck. You know you’ll look great in anything you put on.” And then Mark goes a little bit pink, like he hadn’t meant to say anything at all. It doesn’t sound like sarcasm. It doesn’t sound like anything but total sincerity, actually. Donghyuck finds himself stunned into some sort of silence, and he can’t help but giggle a little nervously, even as his grip on Mark loosens out of surprise.

“Stop teasing,” he croaks, and is humiliated when his voice wavers dangerously—all types of unsure. He lets go of Mark and stumbles away, back into his bedroom so that he can change, and so that he can _get away from Mark_.

What the _hell_ was that?

**Author's Note:**

> twitter/curiouscat @honeybubbletae


End file.
